The Undertoad

Writers talk about how terrifying it is to sit down and create. Even those like the beloved Isaac Asimov, who seemed to compose with ease (and was said to enjoy the act of typing more than just about any other activity), got a bit tentative when faced with the blank page of a new story.

And no wonder. There are so many decisions to make! Let's assume you have been dragged to your desk by a compelling image, character or situation—something you want to explore in a story or script.

(Or by a stack of overdue bills.)

If you're like 150 percent of the writers I know, you will then run through a checklist that begins with coffee or other vital beverage, music or lack thereof, concerns about your research ("Do I really know the difference between an F-14 and an F-16—more to the point, will my audience?"), or possibly something as mundane as which typeface to employ. ("I'm feeling a little Times New Roman these days.")

You're finally ready for the artistic questions. Point of view—who is telling this? Narrative hook—what scene or image or action do I start with? Dialogue—what do these people say?

Then, if you're really looking for a reason to avoid writing, you can ask yourself this: What is my underlying message? What is the real story my subconscious is trying to tell? Or, to borrow and misuse that wonderful word from John Irving's The World According to Garp, what is the Undertoad?

Puppet or puppet master?

You have heard this before: Sci-fi is a "skewed mirror of our times," the form of literature or entertainment that allows writers to express the otherwise inexpressible horrors that creep toward us.

For example, look at Robert A. Heinlein's classic thriller The Puppet Masters (1951 novel, 1994 feature—and surely a candidate for a remake one of these days). The story of the invasion of Earth by alien "slugs" that rob humans of free will and communicate among themselves, acting like a group mind.

The Undertoad was Heinlein's—and perhaps the larger world's—fears of a Communist takeover of individuals' lives and thoughts.

There is a vibrant field of academic studies of this subject, notably collected in Alien Zone: Cultural Theory and Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema, an anthology edited by Annette Kuhn in 1990.

Without delving too deeply into such subjects as Jungian collective unconscious, I will say that, as a consumer and creator of sci-fi, the genre does deal with ideas that cannot be expressed directly. I noticed this when working on the revival of The Outer Limits a decade or more back ... 30 years after the original, which presented a goodly percentage of Puppet Masters or Them-style aliens.

The pitches for the new Outer Limits dealt less with aliens and far more with internal horrors. New biological nastiness. Radical evolutionary changes. It led me to conclude that the Undertoad, then, was fear of humanity's research into the genome and other biological arts. Would we create children who didn't look or sound like us?

Imagining an unbearable future

Among the major returning shows for fall 2008, we have Lost, Heroes and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. You've all seen them. Lost being the adventures of a group of castaways on a mysterious island (isn't it wonderful how a unique, compelling series can be reduced to relative banality in one sentence?) ... Heroes the adventures of a group of ordinary humans with extraordinary abilities ... Terminator the adventures of a mother and son trying to change a horrific future.

Fall 2008 brings us Fringe ... Dollhouse ... The Eleventh Hour. (Yes, also a Knight Rider remake and several others, all helpfully rated by our own Sci-Fi Wire in "Fall's Sci-Fi TV Hits—And Misses." But these are the brightest blips on my particular cultural radar.)

Fringe, from J. J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, deals with a team of F.B.I. agents confronting a worldwide series of "anomalies."

Josh Whedon's Dollhouse concerns a group of (young, attractive) humans who are leased out for all kinds of strange operations before their memories are wiped and they are sent out again.

The Eleventh Hour deals with a genius who is called in when ordinary crime-solving methods—including the magic forensics of C.S.I.—have failed.

Is there an Undertoad here?

Well, most deal with secret wars or secret law enforcement, more so for Terminator and Fringe, less so for Dollhouse. Secret societies and organizations are a staple of thrillers and comic books going back a century. The new wrinkle is that multinational corporations are as likely as governments to be the secret organizations.

All series are set here and now, not in the future.

All assume the existence of powers or technology you and I don't possess. (Lost, Heroes, Dollhouse. In Fringe, F.B.I. agent Olivia Dunham provides a helpful list: "Things like mind control. Teleportation. Astral projections, invisibility, genetic mutation, reanimation, fertility.")

Which leads me to think these series are saying ... we can't bear to imagine the future. We're not afraid of beings from other planets. What unnerves us are beings already among us doing things we don't understand. Beings we aren't smart enough to fight. Is it our machines that scare us? Our avatars? Or is this all about immigrants, changing demographics? Our fears about what our society will look like tomorrow?

Thirty years ago I wrote a short story about the discovery of a science-fiction writer whose work turned out to be horrifyingly prophetic. Never sold it, but, to be fair, I barely submitted it. It may be that my execution was faulty—unlikely, I know, but always a possibility. It may also be that my timing was wrong.

What makes this a trend—the possible undertoad—is that our best and brightest storytellers are drawn to these subjects right now. And we are eager to follow. Right now.

Because it isn't just a matter of what you write—it's what you are able to sell. And if sold (and produced), what connects with an audience. (There are always popular concepts that aren't swept along by the Undertoad.)

Well, for a writer facing the blank screen, this subject is best glanced at, or left entirely unexamined. You don't want to find yourself in the position of the centipede who couldn't walk because he'd started to look too closely at the way his feet worked.

Time to go back to debating the choice between Courier New and maybe Bookman Antiqua.