Forged in Fire, The Series by Nancy L. Eady

Sometime between Mark’s first knee surgery and the second infection surgery, he and I managed to get hooked on a series produced by the History Channel, Forged in Fire. Every show is the same, and every show is different.  

In each show, four blade smiths compete for the title of Forged in Fire champion, and a prize of $10,000. (The skeptic in me always remembers that’s really closer to $5000 once taxes come out, but whatever.) They do this in three rounds; the first round has the four smiths start a knife in their “signature” style. They get three hours, which apparently is a short time in smith world. By the end of this round, each smith is expected to have the blade of the knife and the metal part of the handle (called a “tang”) completed. There often is an unusual twist that increases the difficulty factor for the smiths. For example, in one episode, they had to use the metal from an 18th century cannon to forge their blades, which meant that before they could begin smithing, they had to figure out which part of the cannon had steel suitable for knives. At the end of this round, the smiths present their roughed out blades to the judges, who select one contestant to eliminate based on the quality of the roughed out blades.  

During round two, the three remaining contestants must finish the blade they started in round one. Again, they get three hours to do this. They are told before the round starts that the knife will be tested at the end of the round for strength, sharpness and cutting ability. The performance tests decide who moves forward to the third round. Once in a while, all three smiths turn in wonderful blades that perform equally well; in those situations, the judges then turn to finer details of the knives to determine who moves on. 

For the final round, the two remaining smiths are shown a particular weapon from history, many of which I have never heard of before, although I did recognize the crusader sword, the Elizabethan rapier, and the Viking battle ax, and given five days back at their home forge to craft an authentic reproduction of the weapon. After five days, the two smiths return to the studio forge, where the blades are tested again for performance, strength, lethality and sharpness. Many ballistic dummies, pig carcasses and slabs of ribs have given their all in aid of these tests! The blade that performs the best, or if the performance tests are equal, the blade that looks best wins the prize for its creator.  

I like the show because it tells a lot of stories in a short period of time. There are four stories about the initial forging, three stories about the finishing round, and two stories about the creation of the historic weapon. In addition, each smith has his or her own story, about how they started black smithing with their transition to blade smithing and why they are participating in the competition. I find the way the editors compress the film to tell thirteen stories adequately while still fitting the entire show within the forty-five to fifty minute time window fascinating. I am studying the way they boil everything down to its central essence to help me with my own writing. 

Is there a popular (non-writing) book, television show or movie that you have studied to help you with your writing?