Ed. Note:  Please welcome Mark to the Big Hollywood family. We want him to return.

It took forty years, but I’m finally on a roll. In writing fiction, that is.

Back in 1970, I was an eighteen year old, budding virtuoso on acoustic fingerstyle guitar, the kind of stuff Leo Kottke and John Fahey were doing. I was poor, and figured that in order to develop my music as I desired, I’d need a separate income. I was going to junior college, and fell in love with creative writing. Foolishly (hey, I was young!), I became convinced I could make a good living as a writer, and decided to pursue that parallel to my practice of music.

You can hear some of my music here and watch a few videos here:

Fast forward to 9/11/2001. I’d already caught on to reading early bloggers like Instapundit when the monsters struck the Twin Towers. I was shaken and infuriated to the core, and then discovered I had coronary disease after a heart attack three days later. I recovered with two implanted stents. I was not yet fifty, had yet to make a dime on either my music or prose, and now I was feeling mortal, yet patriotic like never before. So I got on the bandwagon and began blogging as Sunny Days in Heaven, a conservative Catholic blog that attracted 50 or 60 readers on a good day. Never had an Instalanche.

I blogged a few years with diminishing returns, and was going to quit when a start-up, Spero News, asked me to contribute. Just then, a Hollywood promo agency decided that bloggers could help sell a movie, and began inviting them to screenings. Free movies? Sign me up.

The first movie I reviewed was the delightful and fun, Serenity. I predicted it would be a smash hit. That was not to be, alas. 

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Larry Meyers: Frank, what’s the most critical part of the writing process for you?

Frank Military: Point of view is everything. Politics, God, religion, love, race, friendship, sports, poker, sex.

Larry: That also sounds like an actor talking. When you go into a scene, you have to have an attitude, a point of view, and you have to make choices as well. Is that something you think came from your acting background?

Frank: I don’t know. But I’m always surprised when I see actors that don’t have the tools to analyze a script. Instinctually they know that there’s a problem, but nine times out of ten they blame it on themselves. I have friends who audition and I’ll work with them and say, “You’re completely fulfilling what this is. The problem is in the page. It’s not a problem of you getting into a certain head space of where this character is or an emotional space of where this character is. It’s not that. You’re doing it. It’s just not there on the page.”

Larry: I always do a pass where I put on the actor’s hat and remind myself, “What’s the objective for the actor? How are they going to play this? What is the intention behind this line?” I feel like it adds an extra foundation for the script. Is that something you’re doing instinctually because of your training? (more…)

Images have power. Propaganda and marketing are based on the power of the image and the thoughts and feelings that the image conveys. A photo op pulled off well can make a politician’s career. A photo op done badly will torpedo it.

Michael Dukakis riding around in a tank destroyed his presidential run. So is the power of imagery.

When I was a teenager a street artist named Robbie Conal put up grotesque pictures around Los Angeles of Ronald Reagan and his cabinet members like James Watt and Ed Meese.

These images had power over the long term and many street posters by Conal, other artists, a left-wing media and academia all worked in aggregate to change West LA which was Reagan’s home district to the left-wing bastion of “people’s republics” communities it is today. I am not asserting that Conal alone had this affect, but in interviews from the mid-eighties, Conal clearly stated that it was his goal to change public perception and public opinion with his art. (more…)

You’ve heard it said before: “The book is better than the movie.” But the movies helped me write my new book, The First Assassin.

The First Assassin is a historical thriller set primarily in Washington, D.C., at the start of the Civil War. Bestselling author Vince Flynn blurbs it on the front cover: “An excellent book–it’s like The Day of the Jackal set in 1861 Washington.”

The Day of the Jackal is a twofer: Both the book (by Frederick Forsyth) and the movie (the 1973 version) are excellent. But the book is still better. It’s super excellent.

Anyway, I started working on The First Assassin in 1996–more than 13 years ago. Yeah, that’s a long time. It was the project I kept setting aside when something more pressing came along, such as the birth of a child or a writing deadline that came with a guaranteed paycheck. (more…)

The way I see it television needs, among other things, the following:

1. Science Fiction/Thriller/Horror Channel

A short form/short film channel showcasing those genres. Independent producers, writers, creators could submit work to be aired. It wouldn’t have to be, nor should it be at the Sundance level of professionalism delivered on DigiBeta and starring Cameron Diaz doing a favor for the filmmaker because it’s her friend’s cousin, either.

We don’t want that. There’s plenty of that kind of venue and they turn down 99% of the stuff submitted anyway, mainly because it’s not the work of someone’s friend’s cousin. So forget that right away. It has to be underground, guerilla, shoestring and, most important, good. Very good. Damn good. But not expensive. How can you do that, you say? 

With writing.   (more…)

This series of essays was not intended to be a laundry list of conservative literary authors – laundry lists are always boring and never helpful.  Instead, they were intended to be an investigation only, examining the dearth of conservatives in literature with an eye toward discovering the reason for this curious state of affairs and formulating a course for its possible correction.

As to the first, we have reached a tentative answer: A combination of temperament and values in the conservative mind combine to make the writing life both less suitable for, and less attractive to, conservatives.  The question remains:  What is to be done?

Let us state the obvious first  – conservatives who are so inclined must write, write often, and write well.  But that is not enough.  They must submit their work to literary magazines, publishing houses and agencies, large and small, again and again if need be.  Getting your work to market is a long, disappointing slog, with no guarantee of success for even the best of work.  Liberal writers know this and engage the process nonetheless; conservatives must do likewise. (more…)

If you read part one of this essay, you know I hate clichés and stereotypes. They’re the products of hack writers, lazy minds, and innate bigotry.  Part one was about how Hollywood looks at “conservative America.” That is, anything to the right of them is “conservative.” Part 2 is mostly (except for #1) about how they look at themselves and society.

You see, art is a statement, even commercial art. It’s a kind of message, even when the message is stupid. Because all stories are an argument about something. Any story that doesn’t have a point is just a waste of time.

When people talk to you, they’re telling you a lot about themselves, without even realizing it. In the subtext of what they say, they tell you how they see the world. It’s rare that people say exactly what’s on their mind, they usually say it in a roundabout way.  (more…)

As a writer and consumer of entertainment, I really hate clichés and stereotypes. They’re only useful for misdirection, making readers believe the story is going a certain way so you can fool them. But Hollywood keeps trotting out the following lame tropes over and over again. It’s about time they were called on the carpet for this stupidity. These stereotypes are not only offensive; they’re overused to the point where they must be retired for good. If you really care about not offending people, Hollywood, stop offending me and the legions of people who are sick of this drivel.

1. The Crazed Vet/Soldier: According to Hollywood, if you’re a veteran who fought in a war or a soldier returning from one, you are insane, dangerous and probably a murderous sociopath. Either that or you’re a pathetic loser with mental problems. An emotional basket case. And of course, only poor people join the military, only uneducated stooges easily fooled by government propaganda. No one joins the military because they believe in something. If they do they will find out how foolish they were and become disgusted with America. (more…)

At the dawn of mankind our ancient ancestors huddled around campfires and told stories to entertain each other. But the smarter ones realized there was a way to make the stories more effective for the audience. And that was the origin of storytelling technique.

Any artist wants their work to be appreciated. And most artists want to leave a lasting impression. In order to do that, you are either naturally gifted and can do that through your instinctive performance, or you can do it through an understanding of the driving forces that make it happen.

Most people fall into the second category. That does not make them lesser artists. Even the people with natural talent can improve it by honing their craft and learning new tricks.

Where all this falls into the realm of this discussion centers around what I call the point of a story.

Think of it like the business end of a sword. If a sword is dull, it has less a chance to do its job effectively. Of course, most of us writers don’t want to hurt anyone with our work. We want to entertain. Enlighten, if possible. But some have lost track of why they’re doing this. Whether intentionally or not, they are hurting people with their fiction. They are doing harm. Their sword is being put to bad use.

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