Character Profile: Kate Stephan

My first response (to this post in which I called for requests for character insight) was by the lovely Kat Kuhl. She wanted to hear more about Kate Stephan, one of the main characters of my currently shelved SPIRITS OF CHANGE.

About Kate: Ms. Stephan is an unmarried, 56-year-old fierce businesswoman. She is the CEO/majority shareholder of Stephan Enterprises, and she is pretty much the most powerful woman in the world--think a female Lex Luthor. She acts as the financier and gatherer of the heroines in SOC.

a. What initially prompted me to write about her. I knew that I needed someone to act as a the magnet to draw all of the leads (there are five) into the story. I also needed someone to get in on the ground floor and become a believer who could actually do something about her beliefs. Thus, Kate was blinked into existence.
b. One of her best traits. Kate may be a hard-nosed, savvy businesswoman, but she's not closed-minded or ultra-conservative. Her open-mindedness is by far her best trait.
c. One of her worst traits. Kate suffers from that familiar ailment that most commonly afflicts the rich and powerful; she will do anything to get what she wants, because she believes that the rules don't apply to her. As a result, she can be somewhat amoral and manipulative.
d. How easy/difficult I find it to write her. Despite my obvious lack of both money and power, I found Kate really easy to write. She has enough of the stereotypical traits of a financial juggernaut that I could use familiar tropes, but she's also soft and caring (in certain ways) enough that I liked her. In fact, I'd say she was my favorite character in the entire SOC cast.
e. The moment where I feel that I truly captured her. I feel that Kate was alive to me from the moment that I started writing, and in the opening scene of the book (told from her point of view) she has this AMAZING conversation in which she essentially tells the President of the US to take a hike, because she's Kate Stephan. She wasn't being malicious, just...Kate. From that moment, there she was.
f. My plans to write her in the near future. Sadly, SOC has been scrapped for the foreseeable future. I had this great cast and realized that they just weren't going anywhere. But I haven't given up on Kate, and I'm certain that I haven't heard the last of her.