LETTER FROM LINCOLN CHILD TO DOUGLAS PRESTON,
11/27/88

Sunday, 11/27

Doug--

That first chapter is marvelous--highly evocative and gripping. I think it's significantly better than the first draft, and I think that's a sign we know now that we're on the right track. Let me go over once again (for the sake of posterity, if nothing else) what I believe is the storyline we've agreed on. Perhaps we can then use this as our working synopsis, and add to or revise it as time goes on.

First, the background:

There is a group (cadre, if you will) of people in the museum, working on a hush-hush project. ("Project 4") People are outspokenly derisive of it, particularly of the smug, detached, holier-than-thou air of the researchers who work on it, but these same people are also secretly envious of it. They are envious of its position in the museum--it obviously is held in high favor in (almost) all of the right places, and it's equally obviously well-funded. Rumors have it that the government is involved in the project funding somehow. Our heroine is jealous of the Project, for all of the above reasons, and for another reason as well: the project is the pet project of her boss, advisor, and mentor: Montague. His heart is obviously in this project, above all else (including her own work).

It's true that--due to the magnetism of Montague, to the cloistered atmosphere of the project, to the strictly-enforced secrecy rules of Montague's lieutenants, and to the powerful attraction of the project itself-- all involved look upon their work as a sacred quest, whose importance is paramount. (By the way, Doug--what the hell is this project?) What is NOT true is that the project is well funded. In fact, for a variety of reasons, the project is strapped for finances, and--in highest confidence--is likely to lose its last primary financial support within the museum itself. (Perhaps it isn't showing results fast enough for the impatient, top-end bureaucracy?) This has brought an internal crisis to the project.

We know a couple of things at this point (us, not the reader). We know that a crate was sent back from Africa to a young scientist (who turns out to have been Montague). [Should this crate be alluded to obliquely in chapter one, or would that be too obvious?] In this crate was something that related directly to Montague's primary line of work, which later developed into Project 4. Also in the crate were some plants--or seed pods, perhaps, dried or desiccated, or in a state of hibernation. But it's this other thing in the box, that's directly related to his line of work, that can function, not only as an extra red herring, but as his life's study: half-scientific, half-alchemical, it can add much atmosphere to the book... whatever we determine it to be.

Yet, in any case,Montague also spent some time with the pods or plants-- perhaps in conjunction with notes or a diary sent back in the crate, he learns that, when properly prepared, they produce a powerful and dangerous narcotic that was heavily wrapped up in the rituals of certain lost and sinister African tribes. (Or perhaps the drug is discovered as a by-product of his main research?) Since they were dangerous, since they ran the risk of being unethically used for profit, and since his main business lay with other things in the crate, Montague shelved the pods/plants, and didn't mention them again...

...Until many years later, he mentioned them to his most trusted assistant. This assistant is a character original to this new version of the outline; he hasn't appeared before, so we'll have to flesh him out. But he is a powerful, charismatic figure in his own right; next to Montague, he's the chief spokesman for the Project, and is heavily involved with its pr and funding sides. I think he should be the Japanese fly-fisherman! Very friendly--at least superficially more jovial and approachable that the typical Project worker--but he clams up when asked about his project, and becomes evasive. But his very assets--his single-minded dedication to the Project, a monomania verging on the neurotic--also proves to be what turns everything sinister. For, when faced with funding cutbacks and a possible curtailment of the project, this assistant grows desperate. Even more than Montague, and to a highly unhealthy degree, this assistant has given his life to the project. It's his idea to try selling the drug on the side to raise money. To himself, and to those below him in the know, he can justify this as a necessary evil to ensure that their critical project go on. And, after all, Montague's studies show that the drug isn't addictive, or even bad. Perhaps it's beneficial. It's grown in fish tanks throughout the museum, and several project workers are in on the growing and distribution outside. (Our heroine sees some unsavory types lurking around at odd hours, or hears reports of vandals? These are contacts, arriving for a pickup.)

But, at first, Montague knows nothing of all this. If he did, he would have been the first to say that his "studies" on the drug were only the briefest experiments when the crate was first opened. The Assistant, of course, knows from his own research (and from the mounting evidence) that the drug is far from harmless, but at the beginning he deceives himself. As time goes on, he himself falls victim to his own casual and brief research on the drug: he either (a) grows addicted, or (b) begins to change. Perhaps this second possibility is more interesting, frightening, and true to the story line. The drug doesn't addict, it alters--and you don't need to keep taking it, or to O.D. on it, to get altered...one dose will do it, in time. A one-way Jekyll-and-Hyde transformation begins to take place, but at first, it's only internal, albeit supremely evil and savage. He begins to crave the drug as he changes; and under its influence he temporarily (for now) turns into a savage beast, at first overreacting violently to petty annoyances, later becoming completely feral and homicidal. He has taken a dose when the kid wanders into his lab, and sees the drug apparatus. The assistant overreacts and tears the kid to shreds. Then, in his half-feral, half-brilliant state, he gets the first germ of an idea: and he rakes the kid with the claw.

So far we have: The team, though they don't admit the drug to be habit-forming, know that, when taken in huge doses (doses too big to be available or affordable on the street), causes a temporary change in a person--to a superhuman monster capable of amazing evil and ferocity. The team, of course, takes only a clinical interest in this, hiding the truth from themselves--and saying that the effect is only temporary, wearing off without ill effects. Of course, we know that this change will eventually be permanent. There is an especially zealous, secret cadre within the project--perhaps frowned upon by Montague but known about?--that is even more dedicated than he is, and are willing to stop at nothing. They are led by the assistant, and it is they that do the killings, or at least the "extras" meant to confuse the trail.

So, as the story opens, we have a drug plague beginning to sweep the poor areas of the city. The police have their hands full fighting the menace, and this new nasty murder at the museum is the last thing they need--especially since it has to be kept quiet. And that's why they aren't especially interested in our heroine's strange theories. When called in by the heroine, the police detective, though perhaps an anthropology major, has only limited patience for her and her theories about a monster--there's some new drug on the streets, he tells her, that is supposedly a "perfect" high--it's ruining all the other drugs. So he has little time for her mumbo-jumbo speculations about monsters in the museum.

The nice thing about this is that most of our original ideas can stay. The writer, the young curator, the murders, the theories of He Who Walks On All Fours...and, especially, the new exhibit, with all its furor, with its opening of the box, and the resultant unleashing (?) of a monster or a curse, which the project members of course use to divert suspicion...the rivalry between the two old curators, the party...all this can stay, and be even better thanks to this new twist. The Assistant's great idea (as he rakes the kid) is that, with the opening of the exhibit and its attendant publicity, a ritual murder in the supposed manner of He Who Walks On All Fours will create hysteria and a growing internal nightmare, diverting suspicion from himself. Normally, he couldn't cold-bloodedly kill a person just for the sake of diversion, but under the influence of the drug this, and much more, is possible. Later, either he (or those in his cadre) commit other murders to heighten the illusion--they first pick on a janitor, suspecting (rightly) that the murder of someone working within the Museum will heighten fears. Then they get the great idea of ridding themselves of a major pest or two--in particular, Montague's main rival, the boss of our old Young Curator and the person primarily responsible for the threatened cutting-off of funding. Later on, they will also direct their attention to those who might be on their trail...like our heroine.

Thus, much of the original outline can remain, is slightly altered form. I'll work next on merging that original outline with this.

Here's the chapter-specific info, which you can remove from the rest of the outline:

Chap 1 is excellent--but do you think we give too much about the tribe away? If we see THEM ripping the explorer and Crocker, especially with the claw, we'll be less likely to believe it the work of He Who Walks On All Fours when the murders in the museum start occurring. And what about the crate? Should it be mentioned?

Chap 2 can remain pretty similar to the outline I originally sent you, I think--but I'll recap it here:

Scene--New York Museum of Natural History. Time: the present. A family, two parents, two sons and baby daughter, are in NYC to visit the museum. Older brother is swaggering around the place, as if he knows it all. Younger brother, in (somewhat jaundiced) awe of his older brother, is still wide-eyed about the place. Eventually, older brother proclaims the current hall is boring, and that if younger brother will sneak away, he'll show him something really neat...dinosaurs! Younger brother is nervous at leaving parents, but afraid of older's scorn and eager to see dinosaurs, agrees. Older leads younger brother through various halls, each creepier than the last, especially as seen through a child's eyes: for example, the Hall of American Indians, dusty, shadowy, dark, and with creepy foreboding totem poles rising into darkness. Older brother is lost, though he refuses to admit it (to himself or to younger). Eventually, they wander away from the main halls into those that are more seldomly visited. Narrow hallways lined with stuffed birds, their glass eyes staring...quieter and quieter...then, in a gloomy, airless, empty hall, younger turns around to find that brother is missing. Younger panics for a moment, but then a flood of relief washes over him as he sees a brief, jerky movement behind a large screen that has been wheeled against a wall. He tiptoes up and peers behind the screen...and sees a hallway leading back into darkness. Walking timidly onward, calling for his brother...he is gone only a few moments before he runs back out, screaming incomprehensibly and without stopping, dashing blindly for the more populous corridors. No sign of elder brother.