the jugular.

Go for the jugular. This was the advice of Peter Christopher, late author, teacher and friend. Described by his peers as one of the bad boys of fiction, I remember him as a charismatic, slightly rumpled realist who just wanted someone, anyone, in our class to stand up and shock the ever living shit out of him with their story. He was not easily impressed, not by a long shot, but what made him exceptional was that he was always willing to be impressed. 


This is what I learned from him. Some of these things I knew before I met him, but even those he taught me how to make better, how to make beautiful. 


Begin with a brick. A small piece of the construction, but a heavy piece to drop through the silence of a page.


Show the story, don't tell it. He would cross out adverbs, eliminating them like rats trying to chew through the walls of literature. Don't say that the wind is blowing, show the reader the rattle of the branches, shaking like a skeleton to shed its rotting skin.


People don't speak in paragraphs. Dialog is an art. Wielded wisely, it can make the mediocre great. It is often less about what is being said and more about what is not being said. The unspoken and the unspeakable often reveals a great deal about people (characters). He mentioned the screen writer Aaron Sorkin as an excellent example of what to do. If you're not familiar, go watch the first four seasons of The West Wing for which Sorkin was the primary writer. Hell, go watch it again even if you've seen it before. It will teach you a thing or two about how to write dialog even if you're penning a novel and not a television show.


Go for the jugular. Pull no punches. Dive in head first. As Christopher's friend and colleague, Eric Nelson, wrote of him, There was an intensity to his writing that was like a slap in the face – the kind that says “wake up, the world’s on fire.” This intensity, this ultra-real style of writing, is exactly what Christopher meant every time he ordered us to go for the jugular. 


The written word can save the world. Enough said.