We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful David Quiroz Jr. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with David below.
Alright, David thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?
Reading is the best thing you can do if you want to write.
Want to write novels? Read as many novels as you can. You’ll see so many different ways to describe a setting, or communicate emotion, and you can draw inspiration from the many ways an author utilizes their unique voice.
Want to write comic books? Read as many comic books as you can, then track down the scripts online and compare them to the finished product.
Same thing with writing movies: watch a movie, then compare it to the shooting script to see how it was written.
I got my start in screenwriting, and I made the mistake of using scripts that were published and sold at bookstores to study the craft. These scripts were reformatted to be easier for the public to read, so I incorporated some bad habits in my first screenplays. It wasn’t until I read produced screenplays that I realized my errors!
The most important skill to learn, though, and one you’ll only get from experience, is how to develop your voice. What about this story is told in a way that only you can tell it? How can you draw from your experiences, fears, desires, and beliefs to craft a tale in a way no other author could? It’s not enough to tell a good story, you have to tell that story in a compelling manner. The first few stories you write will likely not have this yet, but the more you write, the more you’ll be able to do so in a voice that’s yours alone.
What held me back from learning this, and what I think holds back a lot of aspiring writers, is fear. You’re afraid your story won’t be any good, or that no one will want to read it. You’re afraid of the work it takes to fill hundreds of pages, and of all the work you still have to do once that first draft is written. Only when we’re unafraid can we write honestly, and you’ll need to write with that honesty to display your voice. Getting over that fear is something each writer approaches separately; for me it was finally deciding that instead of writing for a “market” and create a “brand” I was just going to write the stories I wanted to read for myself. Once I focused on myself and stopped worrying about appealing to others my work became so much more sincere and I ended up finding an audience as a result.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I’m a horror writer from Arizona with numerous credits in film, comics, and podcasts. I’m the creator of the independent comic book series Night of the Chihuahuas, a horror-comedy about chihuahuas getting hold of a serum that gives them strength to back up their vicious attitudes.
I specialize in writing horror stories about flawed heroes confronting their worst fears. My work focuses on blue-collar characters and utilizes my experiences growing up mixed race in the suburban Southwestern U.S. With few exceptions. I try to set everything I write in the state of Arizona as it’s my home. I use my work to explore common themes from an uncommon perspective, and the creatures or malevolent entities at play usually take a back seat to the ill intent of the humans involved.
The project I’m most proud of is a feature-length screenplay I wrote called Dagon, which is an adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft story set during WWII. It’s the most personal project I’ve written; I was inspired to write the screenplay by my grandfather’s experiences in WWII as a Mexican-American soldier who spoke Spanish as his first language and was discriminated against by his fellow soldiers during his service in the Pacific campaign. The screenplay was on the Blood List for best-unproduced horror screenplay. It will likely never be produced, given the budget it would require to get made, but it’s gotten me a lot of meetings and received great feedback from everyone who’s read it. I’m currently developing it into a comic book series.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
Getting started in the film industry the focus was always on identifying the audience for a project. Films are expensive and require revenue to support, so the focus is always on how to ensure a project will generate the most revenue possible. This means producers are always tweaking elements of a project to cater to the widest possible audience for revenue purposes, and as a writer you’re taught to identify who you’re writing this for (e.g. – who will buy a ticket to see this once it’s produced) and cater to them. It leads to a lot of familiar storytelling tropes and safe narratives, which when done well can still make for an entertaining film, but it crushes a lot of creativity. Once I got out of screenwriting and started writing for comic books, podcasts, and novels I had to teach myself to stop worrying about who would ever read this and just write for myself. Being sincere with your writing will just about always lead to a more compelling story than one crafted because you were trying to reach a bigger audience. Start with yourself as the intended audience, then surround yourself with a tribe of creatives with similar values and you’ll find an audience for your work.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?
Non-creatives never understand that we are constantly working even if we don’t have a produced work to show you. There have been so many projects I worked on that were dropped for whatever reason (usually a funding issue where a producer optioned something and then couldn’t get the distribution deal they wanted so they walked away from a project rather than sink any more funds into it). I have had a lot of projects I thought would be career-changing that fizzled in development, and those projects still require lots of hours of drafting, revision, and refinement, only to see it all go up in smoke for reasons you can’t control. This makes it infuriating to have a non-creative suggest you haven’t been up to anything new since they haven’t seen a produced work of yours in a few years.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/davidquirozjr
- Instagram: @davidquirozjr
- Twitter: @eldavidquirozjr
