Author Bio (in their own words)
Seán O’Boyle is an Irish, London-based, writer on his self-publishing journey. Since he was a young lad, he’s loved creating stories; whether scribbling short fiction in his school copybooks, or creating dramatic home movies with his toys. He’s even dabbled in the fine art of stand up comedy, with about half a dozen sitcom scripts rotting in the forgotten folders of his old laptops.
His love for fantasy grew during lockdown through reading the genre; epic, cozy and everything in between. And from this, his fantasy comedy adventure debut “The Ballad of Sprikit The Bard (And Company)” was born. Described as “Discworld meets Lies of Locke Lamora”, he hopes readers will enjoy the characters, world and story he’s been building for 3 years. Hopefully they might laugh too (or at least exhale sharply through their noses a few times).
Q1) Hi Seán, thanks for chatting! So first off, tell us about your debut indie fantasy, the intriguingly and ambitiously titled The Ballad of Sprikit The Bard (And Company). What’s it about, and who will it appeal to, other than fans of books with parentheses in the title?
Hi Ed, thanks for having me! The Ballad of Sprikit The Bard (And Company) is my fantasy comedy adventure debut. It’s about a four-foot Bard who loves song, merriment and (mostly) victimless swindles. But he carries a secret. He has a mission to complete, with an elite force seeking to intercept him at every turn. He’s totally clueless and helpless, therefore he has to rely on some very reluctant allies to help him see it through to the end.
I think fans of Discworld and Lies of Locke Lamora would taking a liking to this novel. It has a silly, fun-first style to it. I hope once readers are hooked on that concept that they might find themselves invested in the characters who have their little intricacies. There’s a certain heart to the story that Discworld and parts of Lies of Locke Lamora share.
Q2) There is an interesting idea in this book of the Bard, a respected profession in your fantasy land and someone with a lot of power, not just musical but also magical. There’s a lovely theme in this book about the responsibility of the artist to the audience. It’s clear you have a love of music and the power of music – are you musical in real life and why did you centre the book around this?
I’m musical purely as a listener. I have tried in the past to dabble in guitar playing, but alas it is not a talent I possess. I like my 80s Dad Rock, and 90s RnB. Being totally honest, a lot of my favourite songs are tied directly to their use in films, particularly where they evoke a specific feeling. The soundtrack to Jackie Brown was my entire personality last summer.
You raise a really good point there about the power of music. While I don’t know a lot about music theory or the mechanics of creating music (beyond the research I did for this book), I do know good music has immense power to unite and influence people.
My favourite thing about going to a gig is how for a few hours the entire room is speaking the same language. We all have our separate lives, separate worries and separate opinions but it can take just one person on stage strumming an instrument to bring us all together. Music, like all art, creates a community around it, and anyone can be part of it. It’s an accessible art-form in all the right ways.
Writing about someone playing music presented a challenge. I didn’t want to get too descriptive on chords or arrangements. So, what did I do? I focused on how music relates to feeling. People attribute different songs to their own personal experiences. So when there’s a scene of Sprikit playing a happy, sad or in-between song, I want each reader to hear a different tune in their head based on what songs mean the most to them.
All artists, not just musicians, have a responsibility to their audience. If you have that raw talent whether its writing, singing, dancing or acting; share it with the world! Don’t hide your talents. Follow your passions and let us all see it. Putting yourself out there is a scary thing, but the alternative of hiding your true self is even scarier. And I think in a world where art is being seen more as commodity or product – particularly with the rise of AI – it’s even more important for people to self-express. Being creative is what makes us human, let’s not leave it all the machines!
Q3) As this is principally a comic fantasy, I presume this raises the great challenge of trying to be funny. You’ve dabbled in stand up comedy before, automatically putting you in the top 1% of the population on the measure of bravery. How did that go, if you don’t mind re-living the memories?
I was a shy lad in school, very socially awkward and found it hard to make friends. My one way of expressing myself was making YouTube comedy sketches with my brothers. When I went to university, I naturally joined the Comedy Society. My sole intent there being to make sketches, not stand up. Getting up on stage in front of strangers was unfathomable to me. But the great folks in the Com Soc proved incredibly persuasive, and sure enough I found myself on stage in the student bar doing my first set.
To make a long story short, it was the making of me. I love the art form. Aside from live music, it’s the purest form of expressing yourself. It’s a one man show. You’re the writer, director, actor and producer. Everything hinges on you, and the beauty of it is you know immediately if what you’re doing is working or not. The highs are high and the lows are low. But I learned more from the bad shows, where not a single person even looks like they’re amused, than I did from the good shows.
That instant feedback, that ebb-and-flow with the crowd is as intoxicating as it is terrifying. I could be having the best set of my life, but one dud joke, one poorly timed punchline could sink the whole thing. So, it toughened me up, made me more confident and also a far better writer.
I haven’t done any stand up in the last few years, but I will always be grateful for the experience of it and the friends I made. I know what it’s like to perform in front of a crowd, so perhaps there is a little bit of a Bard in me, like dear Sprikit. Who knows, I may return to the stage someday.
Q4) Back to the book… Pratchett obviously managed to be hilarous, but I’ve read other comic fantasies that haven’t hit the mark because they just aren’t funny. Yours, he says quickly, is very funny – a perfect mixture of the absurd and the deadpan – but is it hard writing a book and knowing that you have to be witty pretty much all the way through? Do you ever worry that it just wasn’t? (Don’t worry, it is).
Very kind of you to say Ed! There is a certain misery in writing comedy of any form. And that misery was certainly prevalent when writing a 460-page comedy novel. Don’t get me wrong, I loved writing this book, but the main issue is I couldn’t get feedback until it was all done!
At least when writing stand-up jokes, you can run then by a friend or try it out on stage. If it doesn’t work, then you can always refine and try again. But writing a comedy novel, is a whole other bag of spiders. The funny moments only work within the context of my story. I can’t just run a joke or a humorous scenario by a friend from the middle of book. They need the context of the plot, setting and characters to be able to understand it. Even then, they won’t fully appreciate it if I just give them the cliff notes version. The only true way for me to get feedback on whether the humour in my book worked, was to finish the bloody thing and give it someone else to read from front-to-back.
I had to learn to be patient with the process and be confident in my abilities. I was very methodical in ensuring the gags were paced and timed correctly. I also cut a lot of (what I think) are funny observations and quips, as I was overdoing in places.
There were plenty of nerves about the humour for sure. It got to a point where on my umpteenth re-read, I ask myself the question “Is this funny?”. “Do I even know what funny is?”. But that’s par for the course for any comedy writer really.
Thankfully feedback from my beta readers (including my toughest critic: my brother Liam) confirmed that The Ballad of Sprikit The Bard (And Company) can call itself a fantasy comedy.
Q5) Along with all the humour of this book there is a deep emotional core, in the vein of recent wacky but emotionally resonant work such as One Piece. Your emotion often comes almost completely out of the blue, and although used in small measures is very powerful, and in one scene completely devastating. Was this surprise emotion on purpose? And why was it important to you to have this in your book?
Yes! One Piece is a great example of how you can have a piece of fiction about a stretchy pirate and his merry band of reprobates, that also completely destroys its fandom emotionally when it needs to.
I’m not going get into any specifics, as I want readers to experience it first hand, but yes, it is intentional. It was really important to me that this book had the quieter, more emotional moments. In fact the book needs them. They act not only as a structural break from the gags but are essential in rounding out certain characters. I think you relate more to silly little people, if you get a view into what makes them tick emotionally.
Much like life, the good times are fleeting, as the bad times wait around the corner to happy slap you back to reality. I hope the emotional parts work in the way I envisaged.
Q6) You’re a self-published debut author. First off, what drew you to choose this publishing path?
I read through Travis Baldree’s A-Z of Self-Publishing article and thought it seemed doable. My day job is very system and process focused, so I have a natural affliction for getting into the weeds on issues. Plus, it added as a nice personal challenge. I’ve always enjoyed learning about the process of a piece of media going from a simple idea to a finished product. This was my way of getting a book out there, while learning all I could about how a book is published.
Q7) How have you found the aspects of self-publishing so far – the prodution process, the marketing, the business side etc. Have there been any particular highs or lows? And how much alcohol did this entail?
It has certainly been a challenge! The last couple of months of formatting, KDP malarkey, ISBNs and re-iterating proof-after-proof have been the most tough. It’s a whole new world for me. The day job and, you know, my life (yes I have a life) affords limited free time for book work. Also these final few hurdles have taken away time from actually writing, which I’m missing terribly. But I’m learning a lot, and I know where to optimise my processes in the future. And there is no better feeling than holding a paperback proof in your hands. It’s just the best.
On the alcohol point, I only drank profusely when dealing with my copyeditor. Don’t get me started on that guy with his incessant need to correct my already perfect writing! (just kidding – Ed you did a marvellous job – please don’t blacklist me) [Ed’s note: I had the honour of being his editor for the book, at least it was an honour until I blacklisted him]
Q8) If you have one piece of advice for authors thinking about debuting in the self-published world, what would it be?
Enjoy the process! The chance that you will be an instant hit, living it large in Vegas at the poker table, is as unlikely as my example just there was cliche. Jump down the self-publishing rabbit hole for no other reason than your passion for writing, love for literature and to be part of an ever-growing community of really nice folks. Who knows, maybe you’ll find success on the way.
Q9) What can we expect from your next book? Are you staying in the melodic footsteps of Sprikit the Bard – the ending certainly suggests possibilties on that score – or are you doing something else?
If there is a sequel to Sprikit – it will be an avant-garde experiment, throwing my fandom into complete disarray in a manner we haven’t seen since Boss Baby 2. I want to go down in a blaze of glory like Hemingway in the Hindenburg.
But seriously, once The Ballad of Sprikit The Bard (And Company) is out on March 15th, I’ll be back in the writer’s chair for sure. What will come of that? You’ll just have to wait and see.
Q10) Finally, a question fitting for your book material: if you had to choose one song to play for an audience that would affect them emotionally (in any kind of emotion) what would it be? Choose wisely, for this may come back to haunt you [Editor’s note: it is highly unlikely to come back to haunt you].
Hurt by Johnny Cash. I would relish in seeing the various life regrets play out on the audience faces in real time. Yes, Middle Aged Man Sitting in The Front Row, maybe you shouldn’t have settled for that career in Accounts Payable. Accounts Receivable was always your true calling.
Nothing better than life regrets. Thanks for chatting Seán!
You can buy The Ballad of Sprikit the Bard (And Company) from Amazon UK here, Amazon US here and Amazon AU here
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