FLICKER STREET: A Brief Respite

FLICKER STREET: A Brief Respite 

I wanted to share a few thoughts and wax introspective on Flicker Street, my ongoing series of treatments for a potential comix series. To those few souls reading this, many thanks! I deeply appreciate your comments, feedback, views, and shares. At times it seems I'm building this world in a proverbial vacuum; perhaps I am. This has been labor of love: 30 + years of love, and now, days and nights of labor. The labor comes in condensing a mammoth, living breathing organism into manageable chunks for the reader to digest. This has been difficult. 

Over the years there have been long, deep holes left in the overarching narrative, as I plowed ahead with what felt right - an ongoing catharsis that was being composed solely for me, not any prospective readers. I am attempting to plug those holes and streamline the narrative leading to the story I most want to tell ultimately. I've always felt that there was (dreaded word here) commercial potential for Flicker Street; that is, I've long believed that its target audience(s) would enjoy FS if they were merely exposed to it. But navigating through the dense underbrush of events that serve as the substratum for the FS saga 'proper' could be problematic to any new readers. The main story, beginning with '1987', was going to be convoluted enough; to grok the particulars and ground rules, so to speak, inherent in the demi-epic backstory, may be too much to ask of an audience.

These are matters I still grapple with as I plunge ever onward, recounting in these treatments all (or most) of the pertinent info needed to arm the reader with the sound foundation needed to enrich and hopefully enhance their experience of FS proper. Consider these treatments prequels to a story yet to unfold; snapshots of my attempt to world build. 

Now that I'm closer to the beginning than the end of the FS "prequels", I would like to share with any potential readers that with '1987' onward, there will be strong tonal shift in narrative. Certain concerns from the treatments may not be as useful in the saga proper. Superheros, mystery men, and pulp style action gives way to a more complex, character-based occult soap opera of sorts. This is not to say there won't be plenty of action, sex, violence, and other "exploitable" elements, but these facets will be woven in and out of the larger loom of intrigue, romance, paranoia, and sci-fi horror ahead. 

As further thoughts on the nature of my work strike me, I may report back here. If I don't (or if I do), I look forward to sharing Treatments #s 17 and 18, currently being constructed. I am still unsure of the final number of chapters, but it will be between 20 and 25 in all likelihood.

Thanx again for reading,
Henry Covert
November 5, 2015

Copyright (c) 2015 George Henry Smathers Jr.