...But this original proposal was just a starting point, a rough and unformed idea to be worked and reworked. Preston and Child quickly discovered one of the advantages of a writing partnership--twice as many ideas to choose from, double the objectivity, twice as many areas of expertise and experience to plumb.

"I remember the summer weekend in 1988 when Doug came up for a working visit. We went driving through the picturesque old towns of the Hudson Valley, brainstorming, talking about the book. We'd both done a lot of thinking since the first proposal was drafted, and it was amazing how many new and intriguing new ideas emerged."
--L. C.

Instead of the rather vague backstory of the first proposal, Preston and Child now toyed with the idea of a unique and terrible plant, used as packing material in crates sent back from an expedition to Africa. This plant would accidentally be found (by a head curator named Montague) to be an incredibly addictive hallucinogen. A fellow named Kawakita, part of Montague's cash-strapped group of scientists at the Museum working on something known as "Project 4," realized that street sales of this drug could repair their group's precarious fiscal situation. The plant would be grown in aquaria throughout the Museum by this group, on the sly, and then sold to selected dealers on the street.

At first, the plan works well. The drug--known as "glaze"--becomes incredibly popular. Sales are good. The scientists originally plan on selling just enough to finance their research. But then Kawakita himself becomes addicted. At large dosages, users of the drug become homicidal, superhumanly strong. One day, two young Museum visitors stumble upon Kawakita as he's in the midst of taking the drug. Upon being discovered, he becomes enraged. Tragedy follows.

Note that, in this draft of RELIC, there is no "monster" other than the crazed human users of the drug. But there is certainly the appearance of one...

...We return now to the porch of Lincoln Child's house. The two writers have further refined their idea for the novel. Details of the opening chapter have been agreed upon. At this point, they decide on a tactic that would become commonplace in the early Preston-Child novels: Douglas Preston would write drafts of a chapter or group of chapters; Lincoln Child would then read them, make comments and suggest changes, and attach a brief outline of his vision for the chapters that would follow. Next, Preston would  revise his chapter drafts based on Child's comments, and then write drafts of the new chapters outlined by Child. Once a sizeable set of chapters were completed in draft, Preston would pass them on to Child for his own rewriting. Although this was the rule rather than the exception (for example, Child wrote the first draft of what was eventually the second chapter of RELIC), this leapfrog style ensured that both writers worked on virtually every sentence of the manuscript.

Several months were to pass before Preston would write the first chapter and send it on to Child for comments. What follows is Lincoln Child's revised outline of the plot for RELIC, dated November 27, 1988, along with his editorial remarks on Preston's opening chapter and his suggested plotline for the next chapter (which would eventually end up as chapter 3 of the finished book).