WGA.org hosts an interview this week with journalist-screenwriter Mark Boal. Boal, who wrote the article that was the basis for the movie In the Valley of Elah, wrote the screenplay for the new movie The Hurt Locker. Some excerpts from the interview:

Does your journalism background affect the way you approach screenwriting?

It does. Journalism is all about telling a story through detail, so I took that aspect with me to screenwriting. And as a journalist, my head is oriented toward stories that are topical and relevant.

Another thing you pick up on as a journalist is capturing the dialogue, because sometimes you don’t have a tape recorder. I’ve interviewed all kinds of people and listened to different people talk from different walks of life. That professional listening you do as a journalist carries over into screenwriting when it comes time to invent characters.

So you have an innate sense of dialogue after interviewing all those people?

I don’t know. I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I think in terms of similarities between the two forms. The type of journalism that I do, which is long-form feature writing, is very detail-oriented and dialogue is very important to telling the story.

You can read the interview in its entirety here. And here’s the trailer for the movie:

Any journalists out there care to comment on Boal’s observations about screenwriting?