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Guess the Plot

Human Years

1. Failed potter Earnest vomits up a baby boy that starts aging so fast, he'll be older than Earnest in a few weeks. Earnest wants to show his kid the world, so he takes him on a road trip to Vegas where they get trapped in a casino.

2. The tale of a talking dog who, annoyed with his owner for always telling people his age in dog years, starts telling other dogs his owner's age in fruit fly years.

3. A multi-generational family saga about aliens who crash landed during the Renaissance and live five times longer than humans, but other than keeping that secret are pretty normal.

4. A dog and a human make a Freaky Friday level body swap, only to discover life in the other's body isn't so different.

5. A man on a spacecraft meets a woman alien that makes a home in his brain. It's an intergalactic love story for the ages.

Original Version

Dear AGENT

HUMAN YEARS, at 65,000 words, is a work of surrealist literary fiction that will appeal to readers of absurd, voice-driven, and humorous road novels that tackle existential themes [Let's put this at the end of the query, and start with paragraph 2, to avoid being rejected before the end of the first sentence.] such as Miranda July’s ALL FOURS and Melissa Broder’s DEATH VALLEY.

While his wife is away on a work trip, a failed potter vomits up a baby [Did I say start with paragraph 2? I meant paragraph 3.] and takes it on the road after discovering it’s aging rapidly with each passing day. [Stop calling the kid "it." Unless "it" is your pronoun of choice.] [If "they" is your pronoun of choice, some people will be annoyed, but not if the guy vomits up twins. And vomiting up twins is far more surreal and absurd than just vomiting up one kid.] [Wait, twins, but one is a rapidly aging baby and the other is a 100-year-old guy getting younger at the same rate. When they both turn 50, they finally look identical, and the universe explodes. Surreal.] [If that sounds better than your actual plot, you can have it for free if you dedicate the book to me.] [Also, wouldn't you take your kid to a doctor first, to see WTF is going on, and then go on a road trip?]

Earnest and his wife never wanted children. It was something they agreed on from the jump. [Exactly what I thought you meant by "never."] But the morning that his wife leaves town for the world’s biggest genetics conference, Earnest starts to hear the sound of his biological clock ticking. It’s that same night that Earnest throws up into a clay bassinet and the baby, Bud, appears. [So only vomit comes out of his mouth, but then it morphs into a baby, as opposed to the fully formed baby exiting Earnest's mouth?] [If they never wanted children, why do they have a bassinet?] The following day, Bud is already walking and talking, calling Earnest, “Dad.” Which is when Earnest and his best friend decide to take Bud on a road trip, a desperate attempt to show him as much of the world while they still can. 

Their trip spans from Santa Cruz to the Grand Canyon,  [That's a good itinerary to see the world; they can stop in Lake Havasu City to see the London Bridge, and Las Vegas for the Eiffel Tower. Of course the Grand Canyon is the highlight, but by the time they reach it the kid will be 120 years old. In human years.] with several hurdles along the way—including a confrontation between Earnest and his dead parents in a tent at Coyote Lake, [Sounds more like a confrontation at Peyote Lake.] as well as being trapped in the siren song of a Vegas casino. As Bud gets older and older, [During the trip, or during the next few weeks?] their bond grows stronger and stronger—lighting the fuse of Earnest’s impending breakdown—all while his relationship with his wife carries the weight of this secret he’s keeping from her. His son. [Is he also her son?]

My short fiction has received [Prize from respected litmag], and is forthcoming in their Fall 2025 issue. My short stories have also been published in the [litmag], [litmag], [litmag], and elsewhere. I am a Teaching Associate at [College], where I study and teach writing. This would be my debut novel. 

Thank you for your time and consideration. 

Best,

Notes

Let me start by saying you've based the whole premise of this novel on faulty science. Which was predictable if you're in a red state.

This baby was totally unexpected and unwanted, but it arrives already named? 

There's a rare rapid-aging condition known as HGPS. Maybe Bud has a mutated form of it.

When a book or movie has magic or monsters or superheroes, there's usually an explanation. Superman and Silver Surfer came from other planets, Spiderman, Flash and Hulk got powers in accidents of nature. Aquaman's father was a fish. Tom Hanks was granted his wish to be big by Zoltar. You either buy the explanation, or you don't. I'd be interested in how a father/son relationship develops if the son is aging years in days, or in whether the son's intellect keeps up with his body. But can't you just say the kid was left on the doorstep in a basket with a note saying Please take care of my child. He has HGPS, and I can't handle it? Or give mom and dad a child who gets into one of mom's genetic experiments and starts aging? In short, I want a better explanation than Bud was vomited up by a man. And there may be a good explanation in the book, but if the query leaves the agent thinking Ew, gross, they may never see the explanation. 

Whether you keep the vomit or not, I think you need to write a query that doesn't inspire questions you aren't gonna answer in the query. That might mean starting the query: When Earnest finds his son Bud is aging several years every day, he realizes time is short, and decides to take the boy on a road trip to see the world. Or at least the Grand Canyon.