Author Interview w/Seán Hill

Laken Honeycutt
Jul 27
11 min read

Author Seán Hill on Shadows & Sorcery, the power of flash fiction, and building hundreds of strange, stunning worlds—one story at a time

Interview with fantasy author Seán Hill on The Author’s Nook blog

Intro & Origins

For readers just discovering your work, how would you describe Shadows & Sorcery in your own words? What makes it stand apart in the fantasy landscape?

Shadows & Sorcery is dark, high, weird, and gothic fantasy fiction condensed into bite-sized pieces with lots to chew on. It’s flash fiction, extremely short form fiction designed to deliver a punch in a small space, focusing on one particular image or idea, while leaving everything else to the imagination in the extreme. Whole worlds, histories, cosmologies may be described just enough to guide your mind in a certain direction, providing a different kind of experience. We think of fantasy as the domain of the novel, preferably the epic saga or expansive trilogy, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Your bio mentions a mix of influences from kung fu movies to Dark Souls to Francis Bacon. How do those eclectic inspirations shape your storytelling?

It’s small things that impact me the most, rather than having any central inspirations. Taking the things mentioned above, Shaw Brothers kung fu and horror films of the 70s-90s were visually inventive, really stylish, and sometimes just plain weird. For example, the lavish wuxia fantasy, the costumes, temples, fights, and magic of Zu: Warrior from the Magic Mountain (1983) alongside the gross out black magic horror of The Boxer’s Omen (1983) inform a lot of the more stylish combat as well as the grimy occult and esoteric imagery I love. Dark Souls, a series of Japanese dark fantasy roleplaying games, has done irreparable brain damage to me with its immaculate mood of melancholy and mystery, its extremely flash fiction-esque indirect storytelling and worldbuilding, and its fusion of western aesthetics with eastern philosophies. Among the many things making up the gumbo in my head, it’s a big one, along with its successor games like Bloodborne, Sekiro, and Elden Ring.

And then there’s Francis Bacon, an Irish-born painter from the early to mid 20^th century, he was an early but profound influence with his extremely unsettling, bleak, and monstrous paintings that arrested my imagination in secondary school (kinda the equivalent of high school for NA readers!), such as his famous Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion or the one I think everyone has seen, his Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X—the screaming pope one. That nasty, visceral, obsessive work found its way deep into my head. Despite the many influences I’ve accrued since, there’s still some Bacon under some of the more grotesque stuff in Shadows & Sorcery.And this isn’t even getting into Robert E. Howard’s energy-charged barbarian action, M.R. James’ stately Victorian prose juxtaposed with some of the most effective horror description I’ve ever read, or all the old school fantasy art from Frank Frazetta, Russ Nicholson, Clyde Caldwell, or even just random bits from countless different movies. Or the music. Or internet articles on magic and religion.

On Craft & Format

You publish new flash fiction every week, often with entirely new characters and worlds. What draws you to this format, and how do you keep the ideas flowing at such a rapid pace?

The most important thing is to have absolutely no life whatsoever! I’m lucky in that I have a lot of free, personal time in which to watch, listen, and read lots of stuff that gets mixed around, filtered, deconstructed, reconstructed, inverted, reversed, and then poured into my flash fiction. Genuinely, just absorbing tons of new stuff or looking at my favourite stuff in a different light is how it works for me. I need new material all the time. In truth, it’s a lot of sifting for images or ideas that just appeal to me. I’ll admit, flash fiction also appeals partly to my focus, memory, and attention issues, but also the fact that it’s different and weird but really accessible. I like the intense focus of it. No messing around, right to the meat.

Flash fiction requires precision and restraint. How do you approach crafting meaningful stories in such tight word counts?

The advantage of flash fiction is its limited space: I don’t need to, nor should I, go into heavy detail on characters and worlds, it’s all about focusing on what exactly I want to communicate and explore, and how to imply others. Each story is born from its title, I generate (a poison word now, but the technically correct one) a bunch of titles with my trusty C# first/last name randomizer—literally a paragraph of code with a ton of generic words I’ve written in there to mix up into unexpected combos. Titles will spark some image or idea in my head, and I work to try and express what I see in my head as best as I can in an engaging, fun way.

You mentioned that most interviews assume an author has “a world” or “a cast” when your work includes hundreds. How do you conceptualize or structure such an expansive creative universe?

Well that’s the trick of it: Shadows & Sorcery is not a universe. Almost every single story in the, as of writing, 700+ story archive is completely standalone. The average edition of S&S is three or so completely separate worlds. Think of them as windows you get to look through for a few minutes, where you join someone, witness an event, or just get to look at some weird place—you don’t get the whole picture, and that’s the draw. I do have general concepts I return to and remix, and I have recurring worlds and characters, but even then, those are also standalone. There’s been a bare handful of actually connected stories, and they’re usually contained in one edition, or in subsequent editions. I love episodic fiction. I love tight one-and-done stories that nevertheless have some depth or something to stick with you afterwards, be it a feeling, an image, or effective moment. Any positive sensation.

Themes & Ideas

You often explore the nature of evil as oppression and domination, and contrast that with the power of choice and personal agency. How do you weave those themes into your stories without being didactic?

This manifests most in the Demiurge stories, my most developed setting, so I’ll talk about that! In this world, the Godhead, the very wellspring of existence, tends towards domination and enslavement as a means of self-actualization, to be in total control of all its component parts. Only, a bunch of spirits, who were created with free will that was designed to be broken, fled and made the material world where they could live as they saw fit.For the most part, this was all designed just as a cool setting, a place to mix all the religious, magical, and philosophical ideas I find interesting, with more grand, archetypal concepts of light and dark that I just like. I tried working this dichotomy into various aspects of the setting, like the magic being this free-form, functionally limitless symbolism and meaning-based metaphysics, versus the gnostic sorcery which must be granted to you by something else, it can never really be your own. The gods as guardians and guides to be venerated, rather than beings to be worshipped and propitiated with sacrifice. It goes on like that, but at the end of the day, I’m not here to espouse a worldview, I’m here to create an interesting place to read about with a consistent feel.

What interests you most about the relationship between magic, religion, and faith in fantasy? How do you explore those tensions in Shadows & Sorcery?

Ask anyone on Bluesky, I’m the magic wizard freak. Magic, as a concept, is fascinating to me. I see it as, essentially, an extension of religion. The vast majority of real life magical practices exist within a religious framework, calling upon, compelling, conjuring, etc. deities/spirits in order to affect some change in the world. It’s an act of will, rather than faith, but comes from faith. I’ve written so many stories on this “extension of religion” idea because I love coming up with religions (usually by taking an idea from a system and making it a whole thing is fun) and then going “okay, how do you get magic out of this?”. You have to make all these considerations, such as how do people express magic? Sigils, names, words, places, times of day or night? And why are things that way? Because a deity said so? Because the world beyond mortals and spirits works that way? The more abstract and ceremonial stuff really interests me. As a concept, magic can be very empowering, but it can also become mired in fear and superstition, it can backfire, especially if you’re dealing with abstracts like intent, belief, focus, etc. Makes for good conflict and drama.

You mentioned the validity of art as a sensory and emotional experience over a didactic one. Can you expand on that? How does that philosophy guide your storytelling?

Now we’re getting into the weird stuff. I’m a really big fan of the Romantic movement’s ideals, as well as the Gothic, Decadent, Aesthetic, and other related movements which emphasized the exploration and expression of feeling, emotion, grotesquerie, the fantastic, and most importantly, the transcendental “greater than the sum of its parts” aspect of art called the sublime that can’t be put into words, but must be felt. A pure emotional experience we might describe these days as vibes.A lot of people will tell you art must have a message, a metaphor, a subtextual meaning in order for it to have substance, even to have worth, and that entertainment and escapism are dirty words. I am fundamentally against this notion and I believe art is simply just a vehicle for expression. It has no purpose beyond its existence as a unique way to communicate some vision, belief, idea, image, or feeling.What excites me in art is when I get a rush from some new thing that engages my imagination. Maybe it’s the way a shot is composed on a film, the lighting, the framing, the colour. Maybe it’s a turn of phrase or particular piece of description in a story. Maybe it’s the mood evoked by a song or its lyrics or its overall theming coming together. That’s what Shadows & Sorcery is all about, creating and sharing these brain buzzing sensory things. I really am all about feeling and evoking feeling in art over “what were they really trying to say?” Maybe that sounds anti-intellectual, but it’s not meant to be, and I don’t claim one is better than the other—although some people would, and do.Depth in art is partly what the artist puts in there and what that dredges out of you, or what is made when the two components of creator and audience come together. Depth is the effort, apparent or uncovered, an artist puts in and what one finds in a work. Depth is the clarity of vision and how well it is expressed, whatever the vision may be, didactic, escapist, or otherwise. Or both!

Characters, Worlds & Recurring Elements

Even with standalone stories, you have recurring places and characters like the Demiurge, Dragonmagick, and the Saint Setting. How do you approach returning to these without making them serialized?

It’s just the short story format! Every story focuses on one particular idea or image, they’re only looking at one tiny slice of their whole worlds. Instead of having to work tons of details together in a sprawling narrative that can’t contradict itself, these bits can stand by themselves and, if desired, can inform but not actually be connected to others. My most recurring character, the red wizard Carloman, who lives in the Demiurge world, can go wherever he pleases and find something new, or perhaps darkly similar. That happens a lot, Carloman will end up half way across the known world and, guess what, something nasty from Outside has appeared there, too—it’s his mission to seek such stuff out. But it’s about the locales and people affected that make the story. Other times, such as the Candorick and Rudge tales in the Saint Setting (I’m terrible at actually naming worlds), their stories are different cases they take on from their employer, which work as a way to explore different parts of their faith-drenched world, however I see fit. I love short fiction, and I think the fantasy genre is starving for short stories (maybe I’m looking in the wrong place but I see pretty much nothing but novels out there). Sure, some of the most foundational fantasy is short and otherwise experimental fiction, like Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories, or Lord Dunsany’s Gods of Pegana.

Process & Practice

Can you share a little about your weekly writing and publishing routine for Shadows & Sorcery? How do you balance inspiration with consistency?

The actual process of writing S&S goes like this: -fire up the ol’ C# name randomizer -hit run on rextester until I get some titles that spark something in my head -write them down and some basic idea of what I see -expand on this for 2-3 days -write in a mad rush for maybe 3 days -collapse, rinse and repeat until the end of time -all the while, read, watch, listen, and play different stuff as much as possibleI’m keenly aware of re-treading old ground, sometimes that’s okay, but sometimes I legitimately worry I’m accidentally re-writing old stories, so a constant intake of new inspirations from a bunch of different sources keeps it fresh, I think! I hope!

When you hit creative blocks (if ever!), how do you push through them, especially with such a demanding release schedule?

There have been weeks, dark and terrible weeks, where I struggle over a single story, and I’ve spent upwards of eight solid hours staring at a single paragraph trying to finish a story. It’s miserable. You think I’d institute regular break periods, not just for illness and emergencies, but alas! It’s like breaking a streak. So it’s usually a matter of me going “You know you can just end the story here, right? Why are you dragging it out so much?” Shifts in perception like that are 100% necessary, realizing I don’t need to detail an entire ending sequence because I’ve already communicated the image or feeling I set out to express. It also helps that the plotlines of these things are, by necessity, pretty simple, and it’s more about the language than actual narratives and arcs and things that are required for longer forms of fiction.It should be noted that this hellish schedule is all me. I admit I wouldn’t write nearly half as much if it wasn’t for this self-imposed nonsense, and I want to keep writing. One day there’ll be more fiction than a person could reasonably read in their lifetime. I’ll have passed beyond the veil of death to make this happen, of course.

Final Reflections

What do you hope readers take away from the stories you tell - especially those who dip into Shadows & Sorcery for the first time?

A positive emotional response. Literally, my ultimate goal is to make people think “man that’s awesome”, that pleasant little surge of excitement when you just vibe with something. Maybe a little spook here and there when I like to get creepy, or twinge of pity or sadness because whatever miserable grimdark stuff you’re reading engaged you, or even a laugh! I’m here to share feelings, really, moments that stay with you for a while after reading, that leave a little impact. After that, inspiration. There’s nothing like that moment when your brain activates and your imagination starts running. That’s a full half of the intent of S&S, sharing that experience of reading or seeing or hearing something that makes you go “wait a goddamn second, I need to get this down”.

Finally, what advice would you give to writers who are interested in experimenting with flash fiction or building an expansive multiverse of short works?

Start with a single image, write about that and nothing else. A field, an old building, or a person, and the details of them that imply something about them. An old fence, a lone tree, a deep crack or carving, clothing, colour, a scar.

Ernest Hemingway implied an entire narrative with six words: For Sale, Baby Shoes, Never Worn. An advertisement (hard up for cash?) for baby shoes (innocence, tenderness) that were never worn (implications of tragedy?). You can do even more in just 100 words. Start wherever you want, give yourself a strict word limit, write a story, then go back and edit, rephrase things, remove the chaff—focus on what it is you’re actually trying to get across.

Flash fiction is so much more than the simple exercise most writers think of it as, it’s another, different, and engaging way to tell a story.

Seán Hill, indie fantasy author and creator of Shadows & Sorcery

Seán Hill is a fantasy writer and wizard enjoyer from Dublin, Ireland, who has spent a lifetime cobbling together as disparate a collection of influences as possible (kung fu movies, Dark Souls, and Francis Bacon sit side by side and they like it). He is not an award winning author, nor does he have a degree to his name. Instead, he considers every book he's read, every song he's heard, every film he's watched, and every game he's played his education. He writes far too much, publishing new fiction every week on his Substack, Shadows & Sorcery, and experts say it won't stop any time soon.