An Interview with Dave Bruno: Author of Oh F*ck! Dinosaurs!

Dave Bruno grew up in a suburb of Chicago, Illinois, and was scared of everything. Eventually, he overcame his fears thanks to horror video games and has been in love with the genre ever since. He has worked on several horror-themed projects, like an animated YouTube show called Scaredy Dave, animations for Puppet Combo video games, and becoming a game master for his Cosmic Horror-centric YouTube show, The Mythos Mystery Society.

He moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2011 to pursue a career in game animation. He currently works as an animator for the mobile game industry and lives a wholesome life with his beautiful wife and daughter.

Tell us about your book.

My book is based on a homebrew tabletop roleplaying scenario I ran for my friends, about a bunch of dramatic college graduates stumbling on a house in the woods that happens to have dinosaurs living inside of it for mysterious reasons. It’s fun, made with a lot of heart, and has more depth to it than the name probably suggests.

Why did you want to write a book?

Honestly, my brother wrote four books, and I’ve been a game master for my group of friends for a long time. This scenario was so unique and fun, and my brother had been encouraging me to write, so I was just like, “You know what? Why not! This would make a really great book!” and took the dive. I’m a Senior Game Animator and have been creative my entire life. I’m not a stranger to writing, but making a real live book was definitely a new experience.

Why did you choose to self-publish?

I enjoyed the fact that I live in a world where I don’t have to go out, find a publisher, give them a lot of money, and then they alter my book somehow or make me write things I don’t want to. The only pressures I have for this book are of my own making. Now, it would’ve been nice to have a publisher do the advertising, that part is a nightmare scarier than any horror book! But overall the creative freedom and casual approach I take to writing is more of what I’m looking for as a new author.

What tools or companies did you use, and what experience did you have?

Well, I mentioned before I’m a Senior Game Animator, and I’ve been professionally animating for about 15 years now. That means I tend to have a suite of creative tools at my disposal. My book has artwork inside it I drew myself in Photoshop. I tried to mimic the style of a Horror Manga like a Junji Ito story for them.

Anything I didn’t feel perfectly confident in my own skillset, I hired freelancers, like Trevor Henderson (the guy who made up Sirenhead), who did the cover image, and Sarah J Coleman, who did the Logo (I’m not much of a Graphic Designer myself).

Outside of the artistic side, I used Reedsy to hire other freelancers to do things like Sensitivity Reading (shout out to Kayla!) and Copy and Proofreading (shout outs to Matt, Lillian, and Daniel!) I also put my expertise in Animation to good use and animated two launch trailers for the book, which you can find on Youtube.

Would you self-publish again?

Absolutely! I’m currently outlining my second book now!

What do you think are the main pitfalls for indie writers?

Costs. It costs a lot of money to self-publish a book. And then trying to sell the book after that feels impossible (especially when you put a curse word in the title.) Now you don’t have to go as professional as I did, but even still it’s going to cost a decent amount.

What tips can you give other authors looking to self-publish?

It’s really fun working with other creative people to get your project together. If you can manage to hire people, do it. I had a blast working with every one of my freelancers and made a lot of friends along the way. Also, do not be afraid of the beta reading process. Initially I was, but my brother and other beta readers were constructive in their criticisms, not mean. It takes a village of creative people to make a very cool story!

What was your steepest learning curve during the publishing process?

How many passes it took to get it right haha. I was so confident in my first pass, by pass six I felt like it was finally getting somewhere.

As a writer, what is your schedule? How do you get the job done?

Because I self-publish and do this for the passion of it and have a day job I enjoy, on top of being a parent of soon-to-be two daughters, I write whenever the mood strikes. But usually that means months potentially of writer’s block, followed by months of writing.

How do you deal with writer’s block?

Let it cook and come back to it later. The inspiration will hit randomly, and sometimes you’ll come up with cooler ideas for stuff you already wrote.

Tell us about the genre you wrote in, and why you chose to write this sort of book.

I wrote in horror because I love horror, but also because most of my life I was a big scaredy cat. Eventually, maybe around like 10 years old-ish, I was so curious about horror and thought conquering the fear was sort of the fun and playful part of the genre. Then I watched “Evil Dead” and I was hooked on the genre. There’s just a fun magic to horror and playing with that part of the mind. Even if it doesn’t scare you, it still comes off as “cool” when horror tries.

Who are your biggest writing inspirations and why?

Surprisingly, I’m not much of a reader! But I really enjoyed Carnosaur by Harry Adam Knight. Not just for the dinosaur part of that book, but just the overall attitude and character connections. Paul Zindell’s Raptor also was a big inspiration for me. I enjoyed how the dinosaur in that was more than just a wild dangerous animal. Both Carnosaur and that book made the dinosaurs closer to a Jason Vorheez serial killer than mere animals. And that’s fun to me!

How do your friends and family get involved with your writing? What do they think of your book?

Extremely! First off, for Oh F*ck! Dinosaurs! It’s based on characters my friends made up for the homebrew tabletop roleplaying scenario we did together. I took their characters, made them a bit deeper, also incorporated some “wishes” my friends had that they didn’t think to do live while we played, and then also incorporated more of their identities into their characters.

My second book isn’t based on a roleplaying thing, it’s all 100% me, but I’ve based the characters on my friends. I love my diverse group of friends and it’s more fun to write a story when you can emotionally relate to how your friend would react in a situation. My wife also helped me “sassify” the book. Any instance where characters are in reality TV-like drama, I would bounce that scene at her and we’d have fun making it a mess.

Why did you write about this particular subject?

I’ve loved dinosaurs longer than I’ve loved horror. Honestly, I saw the new re-release cover for Carnosaur, never having read the book at the time, made an assumption of what it was about, then read the book and found out my assumption was way off base, but then went, “Hey… that story would be cool though!” But I put in my other love, video games, in there as well. This book is basically an amalgamation of all my loves, Dino Crisis, Evil Dead, Resident Evil, cheesy Reality TV, the whole everything bagel of my interests.

What’s your favorite dinosaur?

Stegosaurus, and like a complete fool, I wrote an entire book about dinosaurs and didn’t put my favorite one in it.

What’s your favorite dinosaur that appears in the book?

So the dinosaurs in my book are weird, they have what I like to call “bird quirks.” Where I took weird features from different birds and said, “What if a dinosaur did that?” And it turns out it’s really scary when a dinosaur does bird things! For instance, crows and lyrebirds can mimic extremely well, and my favorite dinosaur in this novel, the Lophostropheus, can also do that. And I had a lot of fun making that both freaky and funny.

What are your plans now your book is published?

Trying to tell people it exists! But also writing more of the second one, and maybe a third too. After that, we’ll see!

What did you learn on your journey as an author?

That writing is really fun, most of my creativity is spent in the more visual spectrum, so getting more internal about it was a delight. I can do whatever I want here, I don’t have to account for a budget or restriction.

What’s next for you as an author?

A book with an equally offensive name but full of different horrors. Bugs!