HOW TO WRITE DIALOGUE
by
Elizabeth Mundy
My top tip for dialogue to avoid characters directly answering each other. Everyone has their own agenda for what they want to get out of the conversation and their speech will reflect that. It also makes for a lot of conflict - it’s pretty annoying when you ask a question and don’t get a straight answer.
Here’s an example of it in my dialogue in A CLEAN CANVAS. Lena Szarka is my heroine, a Hungarian cleaner who turns detective. Pietro is the gallery owner – later that night his most valuable painting will be stolen and suspicion will turn to Lena.
…
Lena began to dust a hedgehog crafted from rusty nails. ‘“Tormented Illusions” is a victory!’ declared Pietro, standing behind her. ‘It is our best exhibition for years.’
It took a moment for Lena to realise Pietro wasn’t speaking to her. Instead he was orating to an imaginary crowd, likely practising for the reception this evening.
‘Today you will sell this animal, maybe?’ she suggested, hopefully.
‘Putting together an exhibition is like painting a masterpiece,’ Pietro continued, full of rapture. ‘Each painting is a brush stroke. They must all be different, but each must work with its neighbour to create a beautiful whole, a “Tormented Illusion”.’
Lena wished that she could clean the tetanus-trap hedgehog in peace. She had been delighted when she’d landed this client for her new agency, Lena’s Cleaners, but the combination of the delicate and dangerous sculptures, the terrifying price tags and Pietro’s constant orating was starting to make her wish she’d upped her rates.
‘This will be the exhibition that will see A Study in Purple find its place in the heart of a discerning buyer,’ said Pietro, gesturing to the fiercely priced painting that dominated the right-hand wall. ‘And we are lucky enough to have the immensely talented artist, Trudy Weincamp, here this evening to tell you how she came to paint this delight. This whole exhibition has been built around her work of genius.’ Pietro paused, and looked to the painting. ‘Her larger pieces dominate a room in the MOMA,’ he continued. ‘But we have A Study in Purple right here in Islington. Her work is iconic. How often can you buy an icon for £84,000?’
Lena still couldn’t believe something that didn’t have three bedrooms and an acre of land could cost that kind of money.
My Lena Szarka mystery series always throws up some special problems for dialogue. Lena doesn’t speak great English and feels very self-conscious about this, especially as she’s cleaning well-educated, rich people’s homes.
I wanted to reflect her speech patterns as a non-native speaker, but was keen for the dialogue to still be easy to understand and flow. And I never wanted her to sound stupid – she’s not.
So I went on a research trip to Hungary and listened to how the Hungarians spoke. Hungarian has fewer propositions so I used this as a tool when Lena spoke. I also decided to make her never contract her words – she will always say ‘did not’ rather than ‘didn’t’. This makes her speech sound awkward, but is still understandable and literate. Occasionally I include a Hungarian word for colour, but make sure that the meaning is clear from the context – I don’t’ want to limit my readership to Hungarians!
Here’s an example from the first book in the series, IN STRANGERS’ HOUSES. In this scene, Lena is cleaning with her fellow Hungarian Timea as they practice their English. Timea’s English is much worse than Lena’s, but she goes missing before this can get too annoying!
‘This man is cheating,’ said Lena.
Timea looked up from the petals she was sweeping. ‘Why you think he is cheat?’ she said.
‘Flowers mean guilty conscience,’ said Lena.
Timea bent down to the flower petals and gave them a deep sniff. ‘These are lovely. Beautiful roses.’
‘Roses are for funerals. Like chrysanthemums.’
‘Not in this country,’ said Timea. ‘But I like more daisies. Daisies remind me of fields back home. I miss the fields.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Maybe these are not guilt flowers, maybe they are love flowers?’
‘Képtelenség,’ humphed Lena. ‘Nonsense. There are empty Calvin Klein underwear boxes in the bin. I fished them out for recycling. Purple. Men do not buy new purple underwear for themselves to impress their wives.’
‘Perhaps wife buys them for him as present,’ said Timea. ‘Because she was pleased with flowers.’
Lena laughed. ‘I wish everyone was as sweet as you,’ she said, ruffling her friend’s hair. ‘You should live on the flying palace – where children come from apples, and flowers are not just from men who cannot keep their fasz in their trousers.’
For me, dialogue is my very favourite part of writing. I think it’s because I was lucky enough to have a mother who taught an MA in screen writing and so I’ve been brought up on it. When writing for the screen you don’t have the luxury of long descriptive passages or flowery metaphors – everything needs to be done through dialogue.
Introducing…
A Clean Canvas
by
Elizabeth Mundy
Crime always leaves a stain…
Lena Szarka, a Hungarian cleaner, dusts off her detective skills when a masterpiece is stolen from a gallery she cleans with her cousin Sarika. When Sarika goes missing too, accusations start to fly.
Convinced her cousin is innocent, Lena sweeps her way through the secrets of the London art scene. But with the evidence against Sarika mounting and the police on her trail, Lena needs to track down the missing painting if she is to clear her cousin.
Embroiling herself in the sketchy world of thwarted talents, unpaid debts and elegant fraudsters, Lena finds that there’s more to this gallery than meets the eye.
About the author, Elizabeth Mundy.
Elizabeth Mundy’s grandmother was a Hungarian immigrant to America who raised five children on a chicken farm in Indiana.
An English Literature graduate from Edinburgh University, Elizabeth is a marketing director for an investment firm and lives in London with her messy husband and two young children.
A Clean Canvas is the second book in the Lena Szarka mystery series about a Hungarian cleaner who turns detective.
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