Merlin and Structure

Hello again.  I'm sorry for the break in service.  I could pretend that our broadband connection was still playing up, but the truth of the matter is that I have been with my Grandmother all week and I have done nothing productive in the field of writing whatsoever.

Anyway, I had a few relevant comments about the last episode of the BBC TV series Merlin.  You have to forgive Merlin it's weaknesses.  In brief, it plays like it was written by committee and is Saturday night tea-time family entertainment.  If you approach it generously it can be a joy to try and predict what order the stock scenes will appear in each week.  But it does have strengths.

One of the things it does very well is the authority figure, King Uther.  King Uther is a bad guy from the point of view of the protagonists, always restricting their actions and telling them no, but they love him and are forced to accept his authority because it is in the interests of the kingdom in very tangible ways.  More than that, especially in the last episode, Uther can be a true villain, persecuting magic users, killing his own wife and dispensing summary executions.  I love what that is teaching kids about authority.  Why do we put up with government and injustice?  Because to do otherwise we would have to compromise our values and become like the things we dislike.

I like the way they have confused the traditional Arthurian characters.  They make us guess if their characters will somehow develop into the ones we expect, or if they are making a point by changing them.  Colorblind casting Guinevere with a mixed race actress is a stroke of genius.  Camelot is a mythic ideal of what Britain should or could be.  What could be a more ideal of Britain than a mixed race Queen the epitome of beauty and grace?  I aim to reflect my subjective perfect England in my wood.  On the other hand, it is compelling to guess how their Morgana will develop into the Morgana we expect.  This kind of foreshadowing, of planting an expectation and then dangling the method to satisfy it, is something I would like to employ in what I am doing.  It is something that you can only do in a full work; it is a technique of the novel or a TV series or an album of music.  It is not fully possible in a short story or an episode or a single song.

I could go on.  I hope to study structure in fiction (and the real world) and one day wield it with prowess.  It is no good for Dangerous Ideas from the Wood for me to play like a beatnik and make disregard for structure my structure.  I have been analysing this for some time and I hope it will pay off.

I realise my shortcomings.  I said in my first post that I thought the public unfairly perceived short story writers as not up to writing a novel.  I am not up to writing a novel.  I cannot sustain my work to medium length, let alone to a full length and I am left scrabbling around piecing together bits.  One day, I will have sufficient understanding, patience and practice to compose something fuller.  One day I will write this thing, and I perceive my advances at every turn, but there is nothing that can be done to rush it.