From Cleveland to The Stars
The Torch met with Alan McElroy via Zoom to talk about writing, Star Trek and the perseverance needed to be a professional writer.
McElroy started his career by writing Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers in 11 days and has since written various movies and TV shows. McElroy most notably worked on Spawn and, more recently, Star Trek: Discovery.
McElroy even has a few acting credits to his name. You can find him in Tekken as the Tekken Arena Attendant.
When McElroy was a kid, he wanted to be an astronaut. However, at a young age, his imagination was running wild. “I spent all my time envisioning the adventures,” McElroy said.
“I used to watch Lost in Space and Star Trek and I would write stories about what it was going to be like in space.” Meanwhile, McElroy wasn’t paying much attention in math classes. As a result, his path towards aeronautical engineering didn’t work out.
Fortunately, the words have always flown for McElroy. For his senior project in high school, he wrote his first novel. “I finished the book and sent it off to get published, and seven months later, I got a rejection letter,” McElroy said.
His dreams of selling the movie rights to his novel were squashed, so he started looking for ways to skip the middleman. At a convention in Cleveland, Ohio, McElroy purchased Bill Lancaster’s draft of The Thing and taught himself how to write screenplays.
“I also had this magazine article from Writer’s Digest magazine about how to set the tabs on your typewriter,” McElroy said. With this first script, he and his young bride, with $2000 and an old Toyota Celica, moved to Los Angeles to reach for the stars.
“I gave myself two years to make it,” McElroy said. Amazingly he got an agent in six weeks and within two years, he was writing and sold his first development deal. He’s been writing professionally ever since.
While McElroy is primarily known for horror films, he was terrified of the genre as a child. “When I was a kid, my sister took a friend of mine and me to see Jaws and the movie scared the fear out of me,” McElroy said. After that, he was able to write anything.
Fortuitously Halloween Four was the first movie McElroy wrote and produced. “It was a great experience because the company needed the script fast,” McElroy said. In that year, there was a Writer’s Guild Strike, which McElroy is a member.
“I had 11 days to write the script,” McElroy said. “It just poured out of me.”
However, with all of McElroy’s success in movies, he always wanted to work in TV. “When my wife and I had kids in the late 80’s we decided to move back to Cleveland to raise them,” McElroy said. Being in Cleveland made it virtually impossible to work on TV because you have to be in LA.
Once his kids were grown, McElroy and his wife were able to return to LA and as McElroy puts it, “To be allowed to work on Star Trek was a God-given dream come true.”
“I grew up watching Star Trek, so it spoke to my soul,” McElroy said. “That has been a real enriching experience for me because I got to write lines for iconic characters I grew up watching.” McElroy has been on Star Trek’s writing team for three seasons.
To up-and-coming writers, McElroy says, “you have to have a unique voice. That’s critical.”
“Writing is about perseverance and determination. It’s not a one-shot deal,” McElroy said. “It’s 15 rounds in the ring, and yes, you’re going to get knocked down over and over again. But you gotta keep climbing back on your feet if you want longevity in your career.”
