Cascade Library Interview with K. Ryn

Interviews by Fans
Title:	Cascade Library Interview with K. Ryn
Interviewer:	Cascade Library
Interviewee:	K. Ryn
Date(s):	June 7, 1999
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	The Sentinel
External Links:	interview is here, Archived version
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

In 1999, K. Ryn was interviewed for Cascade Library.

Some Excerpts

I found the on-line fandom shortly after [seeing the show]. I'm still planting a tree a year to make up for the small forest I decimated when I started printing out the fanfic I found already posted. I inhaled what was out there and started writing to some of the authors to let them know I had enjoyed their efforts. That correspondence paved the way for some lovely friendships. I think, realistically, that it was the people I met on-line which drew me into the fandom. I attended my first con--MediaWest--last year and got to meet some of them in person. I now have several 'adopted' sisters who I dearly love and wouldn't trade for the world.

After reading everything I could get my hands on, I started to dream up my own story ideas. My first completed and posted Sentinel story was The Gift. It's more of a character piece and was written as a submission for the 'Jim and Blair in the Woods' challenge at Guide Posts. At that point I had only seen a few second season episodes. I actually started Death Song first, but set that piece aside for later development, ultimately finishing that story after I had a better handle on the characters and the whole Sentinel/Guide relationship.

Writing The Gift was easy. Sending it to someone to beta was traumatic.

Don't get me wrong. I was pleased with the story and I'm thick-skinned enough to take criticism without feeling as though it's a personal attack. Listening to, and learning from your reader's comments--both positive and negative--are the ways I believe you grow and mature as a writer. However, there was already a great body of good fanfic out there for the show and I was a bit nervous about how my story was going to measure up. Plus, I take my story telling very personally. I had written missing scenes and stories for my favorite shows for years, but they were entirely private efforts--no one had seen them except me.

Of my zine published fiction, Dark Sentinel (in Sentry Post 4) is the story I'm most proud to have written. It's probably the most complex piece I've ever attempted--although the serial I'm working on now, "False Mirrors" may end up surpassing it in some ways. Dark Sentinel combines several plot themes--action/adventure, rescue, quest, pursuit, escape, transformation. It was a challenge to interweave them all successfully, and to deal with the resolution of the story and issues without taking the 'easy' way out. The 'A' plot is Jim trying to find Blair. I tried to make the police work portion very believable with Jim ultimately finding Blair not because of some psychic link, but by solid investigation skills. The 'B' plot deals with the Sentinel/Guide relationship, meshing show canon with mysticism and an aspect of sentinel 'history' which I invented.