Another in a series of Notes on the interconnections between the craft of trial lawyering — which I practiced for 35 years as a prosecutor — and the craft of writing, and for that matter, every other art form.
So — where were we? Ah yes, direct examination of a witness in the government's case. Seemingly the most routine part of the whole trial process, right? You and the witness have prepared in advance, all the questions and answers have been planned out, at least generally. But in the courtroom — real life, real time — things can change and the trial lawyer needs to react and seize the moment spontaneously, knowing that life can take strange twists.
True story: About a decade ago I put on the stand the sister of a decedent in a home invasion murder. Before trial we'd gone over her testimony — all straightforward. But once she was on the stand and we were going back and forth, I had a sense that she had more to tell that she'd never shared with me. I'd gotten to know her well enough that I knew that whatever she communicated would be completely authentic. And so with my prompting, unrehearsed, she got off the witness stand and in the middle of the courtroom physically shared — down to getting on the floor in a fetal position — what it was like to be in a house under invasion and to watch her brother get killed.
So what does that intense scene have to do with the act of writing? I will get back to you soon on that. And my delay is not to set up a "teaser." It's only because segueing from that story, which is still so vivid to me, to a writing tutorial doesn't seem quite right, for lack of any better way to put it.
More soon.