D. I. Hennessey Interview Published on: 17, Jul 2023

I grew up in a small town (population 800) on the Jersey Shore at a time when kids roamed free. We spent summer days building tree forts, doing daredevil stunts on our bikes or catching waves at the beach. Admittedly, our carefree life sometimes proved dangerous – I had a few minor emergency room visits to show for it.

Our grandkids are all elementary age or younger, but yes, most of them love reading or being read to. There are eight of them, with varied interests and ages. They love art projects, outdoor play and generally turning their grandparents’ playroom upside down.

The ‘science’ of human behavior boils down to empathy. Knowing how to read people’s feelings, fears or aspirations has been a big help throughout my career, not only for motivating teams but also for understanding the causes of failure. The greatest successes in business, as in life, often follow repeated failure and learning. The best thing a leader can do to promote success is to create a safe environment where people can learn from trial and failure.

These lessons have been true in writing as well. Becoming a writer is a journey of trial and error. Being able to see a thing from various perspectives helps to create rich and believable characters.

For me, writing is all about faith. The stories I write grow from personal experiences or life-lessons that are interwoven with discoveries for me about God’s character and His involvement in people’s lives. These lessons often come out as part of a story.

My Associate Pastor days were when I was younger. We served as Youth leaders, coordinating weekly programs, sponsoring concerts and doing outreach at colleges in Staten Island, NY. As our four kids came along my life took a path through business roles, but I’ve enjoyed remaining active with teaching Sunday School and contributing as a layman.

I suppose most of us recognize villains all around us – for a writer these become fodder for book characters. The most compelling villains to me are those with a deep propensity for evil – the irredeemable enemy who is hell-bent on stopping the hero from doing something supremely good. (Or the hero trying to stop the villain from doing something supremely bad.) That’s always a formula for an interesting story.

In writing Christian fiction, the strongest hero characters for me have a deep engagement with their faith. They don’t just know about God; they know Him personally. This relationship is the foundation for everything they do. Beyond that, characters need to be believable, with real-life personalities, hangups and struggles.

It’s always a struggle to “show, don’t tell.” Sometimes I’ll sketch out a scene first as a description of what needs to happen to convey a particular message, then I’ll go back and convert it into the characters’ own words and actions. For example, in the Niergel Chronicles series the arguments in support of God’s existence became part of a search by the lead character, whose journey brings him from atheism to faith.

The main character Jimmy’s interactions with angels and a ‘Traveler’ from the past are pure fiction and not really based on research of any kind. With that said, much of the advice and dialog that these supernatural encounters provide is drawn from the Bible and other Christian writers, mainly Charles Spurgeon. The idea for the ‘Traveler’ came from descriptions in the Bible of the way prophets experienced visions of future events as if they were seeing those events firsthand. Audiences today can relate to this as sounding a lot like time travel.

The supernatural storyline really drives the story and provides the basis for all the action. The ‘real life’ parts of the plot grow out of the characters’ interaction with this supernatural undercurrent. Just as in actual real life, they’re generally not aware of the connection.

I’d like to visit Ireland to see our family’s roots.

Old Mr. Van Clief in the Within and Without Time series is a favorite. He’s a complex character with lots of personal baggage from a lifetime of deep pain and bitterness who must find his way back to faith. His individual journey is a touching story of personal redemption.

The hero in that story is a skeptical atheist who is challenged to seek truths he has never considered. The evidence he discovers is actually real. It’s woven into friendly discussions with his kindly great-grandfather and his late uncle’s AI avatar along with his studies of scientific evidence. The goal was to avoid preachy dialog and let him discover it through his own journey.

Several… a few are still single-chapter seeds for a possible future book. One is further along and I’m hoping to have it done this year. It’s a sequel to Within and Without Time that takes place a few years later. It involves End Times events, including the Rapture, as well as interwoven elements of related events from history. It feels kind of ambitious but I’m hoping to pull it off.

All Author is a great resource for writers, especially indie authors like me. I genuinely appreciate the author profile pages and marketing tools. It’s a great way to meet other indie authors and compare lessons – a great place to learn.