The Night of the Hunter (1955)

Apologies for the last minute entry to this challenge. I didn’t think it was for me. I am not great at making New Years Resolutions and I blame the foggy mist of a Greater Manchester January. It is probably the wrong setting to attempt fresh thinking. I am back from a drizzle-laden walk and my hair has frizzed and I feel bedraggled. The snow has disappeared and there is black ice in the parks, so I had to stick to main roads that were slightly too noisy to catch everything my air pods were trying to tell me. The pavements were wet and uneven. I was walking against a small tide of commuters, all with their heads down. Nobody used an umbrella against the dampness in the air that couldn’t quite be called rain.

But even a gloomy walk through the murky streets of the suburbs can provide inspiration.

Do you understand the role the setting of my walk had on my mood? Can you see a link between context and motivation?

Here’s the thing, the reason I wasn’t going to write for this challenge was because I didn’t want to share my passion project. I’m about to write this down and make it real and that scares me. My project for the New Year (as it has been for the last two years) is to write a novel. Now, ssh don’t tell anyone.

On a password protected folder on my lap top I have 120,000 words of a terrible first draft. I’m not being hard on myself, it was meant to be terrible. I took advice about just writing and not getting too caught up in forming the perfect sentences, finding the exact phrase or providing the metaphor that will be adored by critics. The important thing was just to get it written. To pour all the thoughts out onto paper. Editing and re-drafting are only possible if you have something to edit and redraft. So, there is no shame in saying it is a terrible first draft, that was its job – to be a mess of ideas, a chaotic, confused telling of a story.

But I need it to be better now.

There are three major elements to a good story: character, plot and setting.

My first draft was primarily a way to get to know my characters. I’m not one to boast, I know I can write. I have had a good year with my fiction and non-fiction awarded Top Stories and prizes in competitions. A particular strength of my writing is understanding characters. My most successful stories arise out of wanting to tell a character’s story. My characters have elaborate back stories. They have motives and passions. They have blind spots and lapses in judgement. Even my non-fiction is often driven by the ambition of a wannabe 1940s screen writer. She has ambition and motive and challenges thrown at her, which she handles with a stylish panache.

In terms of the novel I can say I am happy with the way I can present my characters.

When it comes to plot, that first draft, well, it meanders. But I have spent time working out a real plot. I know what the catalyst is for the action. I know there will be a crisis and how to build it. I understand the narrative arc.

But what I really want to do is nail the setting.

Before my walk, as part of my own character development as an imaginary female screen writer in a male dominated Hollywood writing room, I had watched The Night of the Hunter (1955). And it delivered a masterclass in setting. The Night of the Hunter finishes with a lynch mob and a vow from the hangman. Watching it I understood what my passion project for 2025 will be.

Panned by critics at the time it is now a recognised masterpiece of late film noir. It has the expressionistic shadows, the tilted camera angles, the disillusioned cynical villain, but it takes the crime out of the dark streets of a city and places threat in a rural village. It demonstrates that any location can be perilous given the right attention to detail.

As Roger Ebert said:

"what a compelling, frightening and beautiful film it is! And how well it has survived its period. Many films of the mid-1950s, even the good ones, seem somewhat dated now, but by setting his story in an invented movie world outside conventional realism, Laughton gave it a timelessness... It is one of the most frightening of movies, with one of the most unforgettable of villains, and on both of those scores, it holds up... well after four decades."

Setting is key to tone and suspense.

Cities can be the bustling joy of happy shopping or hidden corners and discarded litter. The countryside can be wide-open freedom, or the inescapable torture of everyone knowing your business. It just takes a moment to settle the camera to consider what the setting is telling the audience.

I want to take my novel and use the cinematic techniques of direction and lighting to showcase how setting impacts the decisions my characters take. In one shot, I can let them know whether a family home is a refuge or a prison of responsibility. A city of childhood memories changed by time and development so that the adult can no longer find themselves. A phone screen that offers escape or harassment. Possibly a low-tech world so we can make real connections but where no-one can hear your call.

So, over the next year my Vocal subscribers will hear more from my wannabe screen-writer and she will be tracing the way directors and writers convey time and place, and how this links to atmosphere, theme, character and genre.

I will be searching for a style that can subtly convey the details and specifics of location and history. I will be paying attention to the impact of buildings, neighbourhoods, weather, and seasons and how to immerse an audience into a vivid world that they can understand. I want my readers to know the feel of a fabric, the smell of the streets, the noise of the traffic.

So my New Year project - to write with more depth and to produce a second draft of a novel that knows where it's at!