Fantasy author Kate Blackquill’s Protector saga to become a crowd favorite

Kate Blackquill, millennial, chameleon, and avid reader, has spent more time writing for fun than with the view to publishing. But she started taking writing and sharing her work more widely when she read an interview by Matthew Reilly, who said, “There’s no such thing as an aspiring writer. You already are one.” This, coupled with her grade school self’s desire to escape boredom, led to the beginning of her fantasy series, Protector. 

“I started writing the precursor to Protector as a means to escape boredom in grade school. It went through several iterations throughout high school, and it has been sort of stable ever since,” she shares with 8letters.

The saga contains picturesque scenes and adrenaline-building action. To ensure that each chapter captures the right scenes, message, and emotional impact, Blackquill wrote with the cinematic quality of each scene in her mind. She always thought, “how does this look in my head?”

While her writing process is rather straightforward, Blackquill had more to say about her characters, Alex and Chase.

Alex is a mix of all the coolest heroines I’ve ever read or watched, and Chase is probably a composite of all the B-heroes and lovable dorks. Both of them have deepened over the years of gestating the Protector world. Alex is probably the most overpowered character ever, but she’s driven by this deep sense of purpose and discipline. She also embodies a complicated mix of power and restraint.

Chase is the complete opposite: Yes, he has some cool abilities (and, according to one of my earliest readers, swoon-worthy wings), but he also comes off as really naive, dim, and easily taken advantage of, at least when you meet him. But he’s earnest and loyal to a fault, no contest. And I just love seeing the way they shore up each other’s weaknesses when they work together — Chase mellows Alex’s hubris, and Alex challenges Chase to step up his game all the time,” she says.

Aspiring authors could learn a lot from Kate Blackquill, especially in world-building, because she believes she “could give characters my overwhelming feelings or thoughts to hold and play with.”

She adds, “That gave me more insight into creating the inner worlds of my characters, giving them more dimensions and complex motivations, and that has no doubt added so much more color to how the story unfolds and more texture to each moment on the page.”

Fortunately, Protector: The Glass Temple ends with a cliffhanger, which means readers will see more of Alex and Chase in their subsequent books.

For the official book launch, follow Kate Blackquill on Facebook. The book is now open for pre-orders from the website.