one format for all search results?

I’ve got almost 1,500 posts on my weblog. If you search by category or tag or anything, really, you are likely to get a lot of hits. The way WP is set up, if you search “dialogue” you’ll end up with fifty or so complete posts. You have to wade through all tht to find what you’re looking for.

I’m new to WP, so please bear with me if this is a dopey question.

Is there one template of module that controls the format for search results, no matter what kind of search we’re talking about?

So for example if somebody searched for ‘writing prompts’ they would get a neat list of twenty or thirty posts, reverse ordered by date, with links. For example:

12 Jan 07: Start with an overheard conversation.
4 Dec 07: Charles Bronson’s greatest fan (writing prompt)
1 Dec 06: Woman finds old trunk (writing prompt)

…in each case, the title itself is a link to the post.

To summarize — is there any global way to set this up, so that no matter what you search for, or how you search, all results come up in a list like this?

thanks for any help you can provide.