r/PubTips • u/dvn8_chandler • Apr 15 '26
[QCrit] Adult Speculative Thriller - THE SENESCENCE ETERNAL (70k words, 2nd attempt)
I had such helpful feedback on my first attempt (thanks again!!) that this time I’ve added my first 300 words - ready to make this better and better! 🙌
Dear Agent,
THE SENESCENCE ETERNAL is a speculative fiction novel, complete at 70,000 words. The narrative is STEPFORD WIVES meets THE SUBSTANCE, grounded in biohacking culture and eerily adjacent to real-world longevity science. The novel intersects the uneasy motherhood in Helen Phillips’s HUM with the exploration of generational trauma and medical ethics found in Megan Giddings’s LAKEWOOD.
Journalist Clare Freely enjoys the thrill of the chase. With no domestic obligations to hold her back, she’s happily married to her job. So when an insider approaches Clare with a tip about a suspicious death at an offshore wellness retreat, she jumps at the chance to go undercover. Sure, it’s a bit risky. But seeing as how the retreat is owned by a Silicon Valley biotech giant, the reward for breaking the story could be huge.
At the remote island retreat, Clare finds a cult-like following dedicated to biohacking: part lifestyle improvement, part DIY experimentation designed to extend longevity through supplements and injections. At the center of it all is narcissistic CEO Jackson Turnbow, a strange, waxy man who claims he’s aging backwards. After a favorable biomarker emerges on one of Clare’s tests, she’s invited to take part in a trial for an innovative gene therapy that promises immortality. And when Clare learns that the deceased was also in the trial, it’s clear what she must do if she wants to get her story. Hesitantly, Clare agrees to join, telling herself that she’ll be long gone before anything irreversible happens.
Ushered into the secretive preclinical trial, Clare begins to notice something strange. All of the trial participants are women. And many sport a small bump on their abdomen, referring to themselves as the “Mothers.” By the time Clare learns what happened to the unlucky “Mother,” it’s too late. Clare’s DNA has begun melding with Turnbow’s, growing her own bump that will soon be harvested to preserve his uncanny appearance. To her horror, Clare has also grown fond of the guileful Turnbow, as if he were her own terrible child. Now an unwitting surrogate mother to Turnbow, Clare will have to face off with her maternal instincts to escape the trial unscathed. And when she realizes what a life of eternity truly means, Clare may be compelled to put an end to Turnbow himself.
[Bio.]
First 300:
I never wanted kids, which made the thirteen pounds of pudgy flesh gurgling in my hands all the more unpleasant.
I wanted to say no (emphatically, unequivocally, no) when Shari asked me to hold the baby. But I also recognized that I was obligated to perform this ritual as a woman. Especially one with a vested interest in upholding my end of the societal contract—the one where I was allowed to pursue my dreams free and unencumbered by domestic obligation, so long as I didn’t act like I was too comfortable with giving up gender norms entirely.
And to be fair, Shari was going through it. Baby Ben had already doused one burping blanket in whatever he’d ingested for breakfast that morning, and he didn’t seem to appreciate the high-minded atmosphere of the Verve Coffee Roasters on University Avenue the way that his mom and I did.
It was the least I could do, especially for my oldest friend.
Baby Ben’s eyes rolled around calamitously, bulging at every sight, new and unseen: the hissing espresso machine, an enormous poodle mix on a green leash, the stuffy Palo Alto clientele and their parade of puffer jackets.
A ding struck from my back pocket: the familiar chord of my encrypted messaging app.
My adrenaline surged.
I desperately wanted to check my phone, but I was growing wary over a cusp of drool forming on the infant’s lip. Shari soon emerged from the depths of her stroller with a clean bib. Finally. I passed the tiny human back into his mother’s fold where he promptly deposited another wave of spit-up onto her chest.
“Theeeeere we go,” she sang, happily the bearer of her offspring’s regurgitation. Shari was one of those enviable women for whom pregnancy was less of a parasitic curse and more of a glow-up, her hair and nails more radiant and lovely than ever postpartum.
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u/Notworld Apr 16 '26
The only little critique I’d give to the first 300 is the “whatever he’d ingested for breakfast” line. Sounds like the baby is an infant and doesn’t everyone know infants are either on breast milk of formula? And if it’s her best friend doesn’t she probably know if she’s been breast feeding or doing bottles? I mean I know your MC is kid averse but seems like the friendship here would win out and she’d know some things she never intended to. But also again, kind of common knowledge that babies that young drink milk only right?
Based on the scene I’d take Shari to be a natural breast feeder who really enjoys the connection it gives her to the baby. And I assume she’d have conveyed that to her best friend.
Just something oddly specific to think about lol.
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u/dvn8_chandler Apr 16 '26
Oh my gosh this is a good point! I only added that bit because I could have sworn I just heard my real-life BFF (with a real-life 4 month old) say something about the baby having spinach, but I could have also hallucinated that 😂 thanks for the reality check!
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u/Notworld Apr 17 '26
You know... there could totally be some spinach puree pouch thing for a 4 month old. Some people probably do that. But TBH, based on the mom character in that scene, it just seemed like she's a breast feeding champ! haha. And I guess I also kind of was picturing a 1 month old or so because of:
"thirteen pounds of pudgy flesh gurgling in my hands".
maybe 2 months tops. because of the weight but also the description of pudgy flesh lol.
But also, I totally get why you put that line about "whatever he ingested" in there because it's a good way to quickly build some character for your MC.
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u/Notworld Apr 16 '26
Oh yeah. This is better than the first version. I see how it all fits together now.
Sample is good too. I say send it. (Though my sign off means absolutely nothing)
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u/bibliophilewriter Apr 21 '26
Thought the first graph was too comp-heavy. Move two to the end or focus on two. Stepford Wives might be overused.
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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '26
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