Editing David Mamet (section)

=== Mamet speak ===

Mamet's style of writing dialogue, marked by a cynical, street-smart edge, has come to be called ''Mamet speak.''<ref>A Companion to Twentieth-century American Drama, David Krasner, Blackwell Publishing, 2005, p. 410</ref> Mamet himself has criticized his (and other writers') tendency to write "pretty" at the expense of sound, logical plots.<ref>{{cite book|title=Writing in Restaurants |url=https://archive.org/details/writinginrestaur00mame |url-access=registration |last=Mamet |first=David|year=1987 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=9780140089813 }}</ref> When asked how he developed his style for writing dialogue, Mamet said, "In my family, in the days prior to television, we liked to while away the evenings by making ourselves miserable, based solely on our ability to speak the language viciously. That's probably where my ability was honed."<ref>{{cite book|title=The Playboy Interviews: The Directors |editor=Stephen Randall |year=2006 |publisher=M Press |page=276 |chapter=David Mamet: April 1996, interviewed by Geoffrey Norman and John Rezek}}</ref>