Please Welcome Novelist DJ Swykert

by DJ Swykert

We are delighted to welcome novelist DJ Swykert as our guest.

DJ's new thriller is Children of the Enemy (Cambridge Books, October 2012 trade paperback and ebook formats).

Today DJ tells us about the construction of a story.

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The idea for the plot line in Children of the Enemy originated from an article I read in a Detroit newspaper that stated: Detroit Police only solve one-third of the homicides committed in the city. My first thought had nothing to do with the one-third they solved, but for the victims of the two-thirds that go unsolved.

Photo provided courtesy of
DJ Swykert

Children of the Enemy is a story about justice. It's about innocents caught up in the Detroit drug business. It's a character study of the victims and perpetrators not a detective story. It's about people working outside the system who can't get justice within the system. Raymond Little is an ex-convict attempting to save Jude's daughter who was kidnapped by a drug dealer. He knows if he goes through the system Angelina is as good as dead.

I write a book like you would watch a movie. It's how I move the story along, chapters being scenes, the end result being me as a director, assembling the chapter-scenes into a coherent story consisting of characters, conflict and resolution. It all begins with the characters. My protagonist Ray in Children of the Enemy was a man I saw who ran a salvage yard, which could also be described as a junkyard. He was sitting on a chair outside of a house trailer, smoking a cigarette, with virtual mountains of scrap metal pieces and junk appliances surrounding him. I imagined in real life he was perhaps a cross between Dirty Harry and James Earl Jones. It was just how he impressed me. Three-fingered Jack Davis is based on a man I knew as Three-fingered Jack, although they probably call him Two-fingered Jack by now, the drug business is every bit as violent in reality as portrayed in my story.

Once I have a few characters I like I put them into a situation, a conflict. The next step is to frame in my mind how I intend to resolve the conflict. The rest of the writing consists of chapters that point toward the resolution. Last, good writing always needs even better editing. I have been blessed with a good editor. A writer puts down on paper the essence of a story; the editor shapes the story into a book. Few writers can edit themselves. It really helps if you can find an impartial editor to help you with clarity in your writing and story.

If someone were to ask me for advice on how to improve their writing, I'd tell them to read Elmore Leonard's Ten Rules of Writing, which you can find on the internet. It's the most concise and easily explained set of ideas on good writing I've ever found. I don't follow them verbatim, but a lot of his essentials have always stuck with me.

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DJ Swykert is a former 911 operator who writes fiction. His work has appeared in The Tampa Review, Monarch Review, Sand Canyon Review, Zodiac Review, Scissors and Spackle, Spittoon, Barbaric Yawp and BULL. An expert on wolves, he is also the author of the novel Alpha Wolves. You can learn more about DJ and his books on his website.

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Children of the Enemy
DJ Swykert

Jude St. Onge is a man on the run. He is an addict who has stolen a large cache of drugs from Detroit drug kingpin Mitchell Parson, who is determined to retrieve the drugs and take his revenge on Jude.

After the torture slaying of Jude's wife, and the kidnapping of Jude's daughter, Angelina, the last thing Mitchell Parson expected to hear when he picked up the phone was: "I have your sons."

Raymond Little, with a murder conviction in his past, and newspaper reporter Ted Rogers have become unusual allies with Jude in an attempt to rescue his daughter. Together they kidnap Parson's two boys, hoping to secure Angelina's release. Risks for both hostage-takers skyrocket as the two sides square off, while Detroit Homicide Detectives work the case unaware of all that is at stake in the investigation.

Only Ray and Ted can save the endangered children …