Harold Pinter and his Dark World
When I picked up The Home Coming from my book shelf it was actually to show a client how their work would look in print. It was just the number of words, not the content that was similar. Sometimes hard copy can be inspiring when your work seems only ever to be on the computer screen.
As I flicked through the book two names stood out Lenny & Max, character names that I have also used. Lenny is a drug dealer in my first manuscript and Max is a Bayside beau in my second. Obviously The Homecoming is written by a Harry (my leading man in book one) and it is written as a play, a form which I have recently started to work with. This book was perfect on many levels, ticking so many of my boxes.
I have never read Pinter and I soon realised that this was another dark moody piece. Tolstoy, Steinbeck; I seem destined for these cold harsh worlds. I know that this is what my manuscript needs, I need to take off my rose-tinted glasses and delve deeper. I can’t wait to shade it in, in fact I think I will start today!
Eight hours later and that is exactly what I did. After an unusually cold Melbourne day I took Pinter to the spa to warm up. The spark came; I needed to add a repetitive behaviour to illustrate an emotion felt by one of characters.
I found my working copy and started to write, the familiar weight of my manuscript feeling wonderful on my lap. I flicked through the chapters adding a sentence here and a few words there and within an hour a thread of darkness started to unfold. When I got to the last chapter it felt complete. Going back to my manuscript was the right thing to do, occasionally looking back is a good thing. It can bring light into the dark and dark to life.
My book Sharks & Lovers is available to download here: