A perpendicular writer of the present invention comprises a main pole connected to two return poles and further includes one or more shorting shields thereby reducing erasure field on double layer perpendicular media. The perpendicular writer may include side shorting shields connecting the first and second return poles thereby modifying the crosstrack field gradient. Additionally, the perpendicular writer may include a top shorting shield modifying the downtrack gradient and may additionally include a bottom shorting shield for further reduction of erasure fields. The distance between the main pole and the shorting shields may be modified to customize the write field gradient.