Extreme close up. In other words, dialogue.

Your editor here. I want to tell you about my old pal Clark Morgan. He's a playwright with six productions under his cummerbund and, by sunlight, a top creative at ad giant Ogilvy. He's an amazing writer who once taught composition at a major U. When I wanted to improve my work I asked Clark for help. We started meeting at a local bagel shop and between bites and schmears he fine-tuned my stuff. My writing soared. The bagels weren't bad, either.

I asked Clark if I could tape our "bagel summits" for you, our fine subscribers. He graciously agreed. Here's the kick-off installment of an occasional series that will help you -- and me -- get better. Today we're talking about dialogue, listening and writing like you're shooting a movie.

VT: What's the point of dialogue?

CLARK: The main thing about dialogue is: do it for a purpose. Not just because it's "colorful dialogue." Colorful dialogue gets boring. When you're writing a play, characters don't talk to show off their picturesque patois, or to, you know, rend the air with poetry. Characters talk because they want to GET something from some other character on stage. That's interesting to watch. Because it has an outcome. Either they succeed or they fail. And there are things, important things, riding on the outcome. Otherwise, no matter how colorful, or sparkling or erudite, it soon becomes idle chit chat. The audience checks out.

VT: So how do you keep it interesting?

CLARK: One of the great things about writing fictional dialogue is that you can talk like someone you're not, which is great fun. And because it's great fun, you have to really watch it. For example, I have a play with a German character. Originally I wrote his dialogue to exactly mimic the way Germans speak English: the vowel shifts, and their struggles with "th" and "r" and all the rest of it. I had a ball. I thought it would be hilarious. But it was just irritating to read. All you have to do suggest it. Actors and audiences will fill in the rest.

VT: Okay, but a play is mostly dialogue. What's the point of dialogue in a story? What's going on there?

Clark: One of my writing teachers once told me to think in cinematic terms when describing a scene. If you're in a long or medium shot you're in narrative. Dialogue is a close-up. You go into dialogue to capture the sense of the people talking. You get the liveliness and immediacy.

VT: But if you've ever read a word-for-word transcript of a conversation it's like verbal spaghetti.

Clark: When you read a pure transcript of somebody talking you don't think how fresh and lively it sounds. You think, my God, how do we ever understand each other? You don't get dialogue by transcribing the way people speak. When we talk we naturally start and stop sentences for many reasons. I might break off because I'm revising what I'm thinking as I'm thinking about it. I might break off because I realize I'm running into to a dead end. I might break off because I know you know where I'm going so I don't have to finish my thought. But you can follow me nevertheless because, I suppose, so much of understanding is non-verbal, or contextual. And it doesn't seem weird. I never exactly recreate how people talk. I suggest it. People say David Mamet writes such great dialogue because it sounds "just like life." But it's not just like life. It's very stylized. Mamet's very aware of the beats and rhythms he needs to make it sound right, to make it play. If you look at his dialogue on a page you see that it's a lot more stylized - stilted even - than how it sounds on stage.

VT: You once told me about the value of listening to how people talk.

Clark: Yeah. Listen to how people really talk, in the street, at work, at home. I don't mean the starts and stutters and that stuff. I mean listen to what people really say, intentionally or unintentionally. It's so great. It's not so much that today you'll get a beautiful nugget of gold coming out of someone's mouth that you can use -- although that does happen-- it's training yourself to listen all the time. The point is you're driving that stuff into your subconscious all the time. Make it a habit. Carry a notebook, jot stuff down, especially the ordinary way people actually speak. And when you sit down to write, the voices will be there.

VT: Let's go back to thinking cinematically. What's the advantage of this?

Clark: It's a great writing tool because it's so easy to visualize -- establishing shot, medium shot, two shot, extreme close up. It's also a good way to distance yourself from the process of writing while you're writing.

VT: What do you mean?

Clark: One of my biggest struggles when I'm sitting at the computer and trying to write is keeping sight of the big picture. I mean not getting locked into writing the "perfect" sentence and slowing down. I want to focus instead on the story I'm trying to tell -- and letting it flow. I want to keep it loose. I can always revise and rewrite later. Thinking about a story in terms of camera shots gives you perspective, objectivity. You can push in, you can pull out. When it gets really bad you say "cut."