Cascade Library Interview with Kim Heggen

Interviews by Fans
Title:	Cascade Library Interview with Kim Heggen
Interviewer:	Cascade Library
Interviewee:	Kim Heggen
Date(s):	May 22, 2000
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	The Sentinel
External Links:	interview is here, Archived version
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In 2000, Kim Heggen was interviewed for Cascade Library.

Some Excerpts

I don't watch much TV these days, usually just The X-Files. I'd jumped on the Internet in the fall of 1998 looking for XF fanfic. One day while poking around I ran into some well-written Starsky and Hutch fanfic, a show that I had adored when I was a teenager. Several of the S&H fans were into TS, so I kept wondering about this show that they kept telling me about.

Finally, I got together with a S&H fan who had some old fanzines for sale and happens to live here in the same town... We started talking about h/c, and shows new and old, and she kept telling me I had to watch TS! Now, this was February 1999, right before UPN aired the fourth season, and she kept telling me, "They killed Blair! They killed Blair!" I had no idea what she was talking about... but I was curious, and soon started checking out the fanfic.

I didn't actually watch an ep until, oh, April 1999 or something like that. I was too embarrassed and thought my husband would make fun of the show. Actually, he loves it, and has sat and faithfully watched through all of the tapes with me.

[My favorite episode]: Depends on what sort of mood I'm in. For humor and good Jim/Blair interactions, I adore Spare Parts. The scenes with Naomi always calling Blair on someone else's phone, Jim's reaction to Naomi in the loft... it just cracks me up. And that "esophagus" tag-line!

I also love The Sentinel By Blair Sandburg. I realize that it's an extremely controversial episode, but I think that its drama is unparalleled. You have to remember that I was still a very new fan when it aired; I hadn't invested three years watching Blair be a grad student. To me, it made sense that Blair would eventually become a cop.

Most of the reviews and comments on TSbyBS raged around the "Blair-as-a-cop" debate, but there was so much more to that episode. It's a wonderful demonstration of how characters' actions must have some balance to them, and how even the most seemingly innocuous action may have a terrible effect on someone's life. First, there's Blair, who in his naivete leaves his dissertation unprotected on the laptop. Then, along comes Naomi, who plays the trickster, the random element, the Puck. We would never believe in a Blair who would go so far as to willingly betray Jim's secret to a sleazeball like Sid, so Naomi has to play that role.

Then, of course, we have Jim's painful, confused reaction, his barely suppressed anger... I love it when Jim gets all tight-lipped. And, of course, we have Blair making the archetypal Difficult Choice, which proves to be both sad and somehow victorious. Very bittersweet. Anything that you'd find in a proper Greek or Shakespearean tragedy, it's right there in that episode.

Not to mention that there's no BOTW, no obligatory car/boat/motorcycle/horseback chase, and a truly creepy bad guy.

I've always written bits of this and that. When my best friend and I were little, we used to play-act all sorts of things from books we'd read: C.S. Lewis' Narnia books, Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series, things like that. When Star Wars came out we went absolutely nuts over that and Shari started writing one long continuous volume of Star Wars fanfic, with occasional input from me. Later I started fanfic for Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek, although I never finished anything. In high school I wrote stories, both original and fanfic, though I never showed most of it to anyone. My friend actually went on to become a professional writer.

I think that I began thinking about possible story lines as soon as I started reading TS fanfic. The first story that I outlined, I never actually wrote, and it's a good thing. It was truly awful and would have been rightfully flamed down... although it was a bit prophetic, as it deals with Blair cheating on a college project and getting caught. First-season sort of setting, I recall. Maybe someday I'll whip it into shape and write it anyway.

Justifiable Means was my first TS fanfic. I'd been writing some shorter pieces for the Starsky and Hutch fans, so I wasn't new to writing fanfic. I started Justifiable Means... um, when? Sometime in the spring of '99. I think I finished it at the end of May, and it was posted in installments on Senfic. I was a bit sneaky... I tried to just casually step up with that story as if I'd been there a long time. I was worried that if I mentioned that it was my first TS fanfic that everyone would have just snorted and hit the "delete" button... especially if they knew how few episodes I'd actually seen when I started it (about four, I think. Gulp).

Posting Justifiable Means was a rush. I received some truly heart-lifting feedback while writing that story. It was an amazing, heady experience for me.

[Writing episodes for VS5: Very, very difficult for me, at first... but by the same token, it was very good for me. I'm not as a rule someone who works well in groups; I tend to avoid meeting and committees unless I'm getting to run the show.

Mackie's done an amazing job. She has more patience and tact in her littlest fingernail than I have in my entire body. She's put up with all sorts of BS from me: whining, private rants, opinionated remarks... but she hasn't fired me yet.

While some of the writers doing the virtual season episodes have been veterans, others have been relative newcomers. I can only marvel at the gutsiness required to launch a maiden writing effort in a venue that receives so much attention. My hat is off to all of you!

Continuity is definitely a challenge. I have enough trouble keeping track of my own ideas, let alone everyone else's. And it will only get harder next year. Thankfully, wiser heads than mine are keeping an eye on this.