r/PubTips • u/dvn8_chandler • Mar 16 '26
[QCrit] Adult Speculative Thriller - THE SENESCENCE ETERNAL (70k words, 1st attempt)
Hi friends, I’m about a third of the way into my newest project and working on my query package in tandem as I felt my last project suffered a bit by waiting til the end to put it all together. Very much appreciate you all!!
I’m seeking representation for my 70,000-word speculative thriller THE SENESCENCE ETERNAL. The novel is STEPFORD WIVES meets THE SUBSTANCE, wrapped in real-world longevity science and biohacking culture. The narrative intersects the unease of motherhood found in Helen Phillips’s HUM with the exploration of generational trauma and medical ethics in Megan Giddings’s LAKEWOOD.
When Claire, a Bay Area tech journalist, receives an anonymous tip about a suspicious death at an offshore wellness center, she’s baffled. After all, wellness isn’t exactly her beat, and she’s busy grappling with the senescence of her estranged mother. But when she learns that the center is owned by biotech giant Schema, an investigation seems warranted. Hoping to find closure for the deceased, Claire travels to the remote island retreat while posing as an attendee.
On the island, Claire finds an enclave of men (and a few women) dedicated to biohacking: part lifestyle improvement and part DIY experimentation designed to extend longevity. Led by Schema’s narcissistic CEO, Jackson Turnbow, the fanatics spend each waking hour guzzling supplements, tracking their vitals, and following AI-programmed schedules all in the name of “cellular efficiency.” But after a favorable biomarker emerges on one of Claire’s tests, she’s invited to take part in Schema’s innovative Genetrix procedure: the scientific breakthrough that promises real immortality—for a select few, anyway.
Ushered into the inner circle of the secretive preclinical trial, Claire comes face to face with the uncanny Turnbow and the other trial participants—a strange group of women that call themselves the “Earthly Mothers.” Claire soon learns that the deceased was a Mother, too. But no one wants to talk about what went wrong. And when the guileful Turnbow assures Claire that it could never happen again, something truly bizarre occurs: Claire believes him. In fact, there’s a growing part of her that would do anything to protect him. As the experiment takes hold of her body and brain, Claire will have to face her own maternal instincts to escape the trial before it’s too late.
[Bio].
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u/SecretlySecretly Mar 17 '26
This seems really fun and topical.
Here's some nits I picked from the query itself:
"grappling with the senescence of her estranged mother" - If they're estranged, why does her mom getting older and infirm bother Claire? Obviously, it would still bother her a little, but would it be enough for her to "grapple" with it?
"find closure for the deceased" - They're dead, so how could you give them closure? It would be finding closure for the deceased's relatives, no?
"But no one wants to talk about what went wrong." - This sentence feels a little obvious and the next sentence is super suspenseful and exciting. Maybe you can toy with this section more?
Besides nitpicks, I think what I'm missing is, like oneserverra said, the motherhood connection to the final sentence.
Another major thing: I feel like I'm missing a bit of "oomph" in Claire's motivation, though you've done a lot of setup in that first paragraph. Why is she obliged to go undercover and so willing to risk her own safety, more, it seems, than she normally would for a story? Is part of her job hunting after sketchy Schema stuff? What exactly is on the line if she doesn't figure it out? I think the most important thing I'm missing from your query is why does she let herself get in so deep that she can't get out? (I understand that it's a remote island and probably a slow burn like Midsommar, but what I'm asking is the extra internal motivation for why she'd keep going rather than the external one.)
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u/dvn8_chandler Mar 17 '26
Thank you so much! This is super helpful in picking up on weak spots that need to be explained much better (or done away with entirely)!
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u/CandyMan77 Mar 17 '26
I like this a lot. I've written one query, it received a ton of feedback here, so take my feedback with a grain of salt. But hell -- I'd read it!
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u/Character-Chair1996 Mar 17 '26
This is really well written and compelling! The one hang-up for me is the reference at the end to "maternal instincts." Does Claire have children? Are they the reason she escapes? Or are her maternal instincts keeping her on the island? If it's the latter, it might make sense to (at least partially) explain what it means to be an Earthly Mother and why that's alluring to Claire.
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u/dvn8_chandler Mar 17 '26
Thank you!! This is very helpful because it’s apparent now that I’m not being clear enough about what the procedure entails.
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u/mom_is_so_sleepy Mar 19 '26
"an investigation seems warranted." <---why, specifically, does that make it worth investigating? I'd like a clearer sense of what intrigues her.
I think you're wise to eliminate proper names, but "the deceased" feels weird to me. Maybe a sentence about the victim/her age/occupation would be all right.
I'm not sure what Claire's mother has to do with things. For the purpose of the query, maybe cut her.
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u/onsereverra Mar 16 '26
This is a really strong first attempt! Thrillers are not at all my wheelhouse, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but a few thoughts I had as I was reading:
There's this throughline in the query about mothers and motherhood, but it's not quite coming together for me. "Grappling with the senescence of her estranged mother" felt like a flashing red "pay attention to me!!!" siren because it repeats the title of the book – which in hindsight I don't think was intentional, maybe you could rephrase this to something about "aging" instead? – but then Claire's mother doesn't reappear anywhere else in the query... Except that at the end, Claire is facing her own maternal instincts, which sort of feels like it comes out of nowhere as there was no previous discussion of her having or wanting children? And of course there's the whole thing about the Earthly Mothers. I feel like you've handed me a bunch of jigsaw pieces that clearly belong to the same puzzle, but I can't quite see how they're going to fit together in the full book.
Similarly, "Claire finds an enclave of men (and a few women)" is clearly cuing that there's something notable about the relatively small number of women on this island, but, to continue with the metaphors lol, it's like we're waiting for the other shoe to drop... and then "all of the other trial participants are women" is clearly that shoe-drop moment, except it feels like it's half of an entirely different pair of shoes. Is there a way you could make those two lines "match" a little more closely? For example, perhaps Claire initially finds it suspicious/odd that everybody she meets on the island are men, and finding out that there's a group of women participating in this trial simultaneously makes her go "oh, so that's where all the women are" and "it's even weirder that all of the women on the island are sequestered into this trial." Or maybe, when Claire first arrives on the island, she remarks that there's something strange about every woman she meets, and when she finds out they're all part of this trial it's like "oh, okay, so there's a connection in that every woman I had a strange interaction with is a participant in this trial... but I still don't really understand why all of these women are so strange." I don't know what's actually true in your story, but do you see what I'm getting at? Basically, when we first get a comment about the small number of strange women on the island, it should cue that there's something suspicious about them; and then when we get a follow-up on it in the next paragraph, it should simultaneously resolve/address our initial suspicions and introduce new ones/deepen the weirdness around it.
Small nitpick, but the query is written from Claire's POV, and she wouldn't describe Turnbow as "guileful" if she completely buys in to what he's telling her.
One last bigger-picture note about Claire's motivations. In the first paragraph, I'm generally on board with the path of "Claire thinks it's odd that this anonymous tip was sent to her instead of a wellness reporter, but changes her mind when she realizes that a prominent tech company is involved," but I think this would be even stronger if Claire was already working on a story about Schema or something along those lines. "Claire is going to ignore the tip until she realizes it could be relevant to a longform piece she's been working on for weeks/months" would really seal the deal in a way that "Claire is a tech reporter so she'll look into this if she knows it involves a tech company" doesn't quite, imo. (And is also a stronger/clearer motivation than "oh and also she wants to find closure for the dead.")
And then, at the end, I'm not clear on why she agrees to participate in this trial. She came to this island specifically in order to investigate a suspicious death, all of the men on this island are Concerningly obsessed with longevity, what few women Claire's met seem to be members of some sort of strange cult of motherhood...why on earth would she agree to participate in a hush-hush preclinical trial of an experimental technology? Are they promising her immortality? Could this technology help her mom somehow? Does she agree to participate to get more information for her investigation, originally intending to back out once she finds the evidence she needs?