Classic silent horror movies for book 5 - Halloween at The Secondhand Bookworm - writing progress

I have been enjoying writing the first five chapters of my fifth novel in my bookshop series which is titled 'Halloween at The Secondhand Bookworm'. In chapter four, at the end of the day, my main character Nora Jolly, who runs the secondhand bookshop, sets off for an evening of silent, black and white horror movies being shown in the old town hall. So I spent the afternoon this Saturday past watching a few silent, black and white horror movies on Youtube to bring into the story. Like me, Nora isn't too keen on scary movies.

This novel is set during Shriek-Week in Castletown (my fictional town) and the council have gone all out with spooky festivities, including fixing up Red Plaques outside shops and houses where curious or macabre things have occurred. Naturally, Nora is horrified to learn the legend of the boy down the covered well beneath the flagstones by the front door of the shop.

There are plenty of laughs and hilarious scenarios as Nora and Cara decorate the shop for Halloween and fill the window display with an assortment of ghostly books. I always open each novel on a Monday morning and we spend a week (six days) with Nora Jolly in the bookshop as well as several excursions including a calls day travelling about Sussex in the bookshop van, making calls to purchase books.

I decided to set the theme as Halloween for book five not only to have something topical for the season each year, bringing in various books, literary events and situations in a bookshop over the festivities, but also to write memories from ten years worth of Halloweens' that I worked in a used and antiquarian bookshop. It is proving an amusing trip down memory lane.

I enjoy added research for each of my novels but it has been unnerving delving into ghostly novels, movies and atmospheres for this one. I'm not a fan of horror books and thought about keeping the theme more ghostly but in the end I decided to cover a variety of horror novels and books, including Stephen King novels. For instance, chapter two is titled 'IT'.

My uncle lent me 'IT' to read when I was about ten years old! I remember starting to read it and not getting past the first few pages! In 1988-89 I watched the miniseries IT on TV staring Tim Curry with a group of friends. I was only about 12 at the time and it has haunted me ever since! I'm certainly not going to see the remake!

The two movies that Nora and Humphrey go to watch in the old town hall are: 'The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari' and 'The Phantom Carriage'. I watched a bit of each of these on Youtube and imagined my characters watching them in the old town hall in the dark a few days leading up to All Hallows Eve. Unsettling to say the least.

The Phantom Carriage was released in 1919. It is a Swedish movie. I had actually come across the knowledge of it while working in my bookshop about ten years ago. A book had come in about silent horror movies and I had chosen it for the Halloween window display but, as usually happened, I spent about half an hour reading through it myself and remember finding the plot of this film interesting.

The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari is a German silent movie released in 1921. I read up about it and looked at the film for a bit. Certainly one for Halloween in an old town hall!

I was interested in these movies because I also run a film production company. We produce films almost in a silent movie style. We recreate key moments from the lives of historical figures such as Mary Tudor, and Saints such as Teresa of Avila but we do not record dialogue. Rather than use text plates we have a narrative over the film which fuses footage with sacred art, historical images, scenery and more, with an original music score. The result is atmospheric and absorbing and it a style that has been successful for the past 10 years. I appreciated the style of filming in these early movies and especially liked the black and white, gritty effect. I have just finished editing a film set mainly in 1879 about Our Lady and the visionaries of Knock where I aged a lot of our footage with effects so this tied in nicely to my writing hobby.

It's great to be on chapter five in my novel now. I have most of it planned and it is easy to write and read so I hope to have it completed in time for Halloween this year. It is humorous, lighthearted, funny and set in a bookshop where anything can and does happen. Chapter six is titled 'In the dungeons' so I'm looking forward to spending an evening in the old dungeons of Castletown which is purportedly haunted!

'Halloween at The Secondhand Bookworm' is book 5 in the series and coming soon to Kindle and in paperback. Start the series today on AMAZON - here is a link to book one: 'The Secondhand Bookworm' -

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