Every character I write comes from somewhere. Some are built entirely from imagination, others draw from the people I’ve known, the things I’ve experienced, and the stories that feel real even in a fictional setting. Dolan Keane, the protagonist of Broken Shadows, is one of the most personal characters I’ve ever written. His journey through trauma, guilt, and redemption is one that many veterans will recognize, even as the story around him stretches the limits of realism.
Dolan’s name goes way back to a book I started writing in middle or high school, one that’s long since been lost to time. When I sat down to write Broken Shadows, I brought that name back, but the character himself became something entirely different. His backstory was built to fit the needs of the novel, but I kept him grounded in things I knew or could confidently portray.
His struggles with PTSD, survivor’s guilt, and self-destruction come from a deeply personal place. Much of what Dolan goes through, his mental state, his reactions, the weight he carries, was drawn from my own experiences or those of people close to me. Writing that kind of reality into fiction is never easy. With every scene that digs into Dolan’s trauma, I had to dig into my own, which meant revisiting things I’d rather leave buried. But if I was going to tell this story, I was going to tell it right.
When Broken Shadows begins, Dolan is at his lowest point. He is dishonorably discharged, drowning in guilt and alcohol, cut off from the people who once mattered most. Over the course of the novel, he fights his way back, not to being cured or completely whole, but to being functional, to having something worth fighting for again.
His relationship with his sons, Kevin and John, is at the heart of that struggle. That dynamic was one of the hardest parts of the book to get right. In many ways, it is a reflection of where my own relationship with my sons could have gone if life had played out differently. It forced me to walk that line between personal and fictional, rewriting sections over and over to find the balance.
Though the overarching story involves a global conspiracy and high-stakes action, the core of Broken Shadows is about what veterans go through when they come home, how trauma lingers, how it shapes relationships, and how the fight does not end just because the war is over.
There is a near-suicide scene in Broken Shadows that I wrote, rewrote, threw away, and rewrote again. It is one of the hardest things I have ever put on paper. In the end, it became the most painful yet powerful moment in the book. It is raw, uncomfortable, and unflinching because that is what it needed to be.
Originally, Dolan was supposed to be a very different character. But when I introduced Kevin and John, who are in a way future versions of my own kids, carrying some of my hopes and dreams for them, Dolan changed. He became more of me than I initially intended. That shift made the story stronger, but it also made it more difficult to write.
At one point, Dolan was going to return in a future book, possibly linking back to The Shattered Shield. But as Broken Shadows took shape, it became clear that Dolan’s story needed to stand alone. His journey is complete by the end of the novel, and I do not see myself bringing him back.
At its core, Broken Shadows is about survival, not just in the literal, action-driven sense, but in the deeply personal way that trauma survivors understand. Dolan’s journey is not about becoming a hero or winning some final battle. It is about making it through the worst of it, holding on, and realizing that there is something better on the other side.
For anyone who has ever struggled with the weight of their past, with feeling broken or lost, Dolan’s story is a reminder that you are not alone. And even when the shadows feel endless, they do not have to define you.
If Dolan had one thing to say to his younger self, the version of him before everything went wrong, it would not be some grand revelation. It would be simple. We make it through, and it is better on the other side.