The Fragments of Me Inside Kate

One of the most common comments I have received from those who know me and have read Holly & Oak is how much more they feel they understand me after reading it. I am not sure I would see it that way, but I would agree that there is a lot of me in Kate.

So how much of me is there in her? Enough to feel familiar, but not so much that she and I are interchangeable. And maybe that is the beauty of writing. You can create a character who carries fragments of you, refracted into something both true and untrue at the same time.

There are a few key things I would point to.

Kate’s fierce love and devotion to her people

The number of people Kate truly loves is a small and close circle. Mine is similar. She would do anything, sacrifice anything, for those she holds most dear. While she is a people pleaser and tries to keep everyone happy, she actively chooses to prioritise those she loves most. I am the same. My person is someone I would drop anything for. She means the world to me. We do not always see eye to eye. Sometimes we disagree and hold each other accountable, but we will always protect and support each other against anything external. Our bond is so deep that most people assume that if I know something, she knows it too.

Kate’s sense of community

Kate has a deeply embedded sense of community and its importance. She is not overly individualistic and often prioritises the good of the community over her own needs. There is a story in the novels that explains where this comes from. Kate describes standing on the side of a mountain in a small rural village in Thailand. That part of the story is true, though the Christmas present aspect is not. It is something I have carried with me since that day.

Kate’s insecurities

Kate is deeply insecure. She believes the people closest to her only tolerate her. Because of this, she feels a constant need to prove her worth through actions. She does not believe there is anything about who she is that others would love, care for, or respect. I know what that feels like. That itch to prove your value, even when nobody is asking you to.

Kate’s love language and her toxic traits

I once read that your toxic traits tend to be the inverse of your love language. If that is true, Kate and I share the same paradox. Her love languages are acts of service and words of affirmation. She gives and she speaks love freely. The inverse is that she will not ask for help, and when the weight becomes too heavy, she goes silent. I have done the same. And if you have read her quarantine arc in Season Three or her confrontation with Nolan at the end of Season Two, you have seen what that silence costs her.

Kate’s resilience

Kate may not be the most optimistic person, but optimism is not the same thing as resilience. Resilience is knowing that struggle is a part of life and finding a way through it, however messy that might be. Borrowing from Dr Lucy Hone’s work on resilience, I would say Kate understands this incredibly well. Her grief after the loss of her wife nearly undoes her, but she keeps moving, even when it hurts. She finds her way forward, not because it is easy but because she chooses to keep going. That strength is something I admire in her.

Kate’s struggle with emotional honesty

For all her resilience, Kate struggles with being emotionally honest. She does not like being vulnerable or exposed. Instead, she often projects the version of herself that she thinks the people around her want to see. It is a constant manufacturing of the parts of herself that others are allowed access to, rather than the raw truth of what she feels. This ties directly into her insecurities, and it is one of the traits that makes her both relatable and frustrating at the same time.

Where Kate and I part ways

But Kate is not just me in a fictional mask. She is braver than I am in some ways, reckless in others. She makes choices I would not make, sometimes destructive, sometimes courageous. She is a version of me turned up, twisted, and forced into corners I have never stood in. That is what makes her feel alive to me.

What writing Kate taught me

The biggest surprise was how much writing her changed me. Putting her insecurities on the page forced me to look at my own. Seeing her go silent made me think about the moments in my life when I have done the same. Writing her was not just storytelling. It was a mirror, even if a cracked one.

The risk of being misunderstood

Because Kate carries so much of me, there is also a risk that readers assume her words or views are identical to mine. That is not always the case. While we share many similarities, our journeys are different. Our stories are different. Our choices are different. Kate expresses things I never would, and sometimes she is wrong. That distinction matters, because even though she contains parts of me, she is not me.

So is Kate me? In some ways, absolutely. But she is also not. She is a character who carries pieces of me, refracted through fiction. And maybe that is the point. You do not write characters to escape yourself. You write them to see yourself differently.

It leaves me wondering: can we ever truly separate ourselves from the characters we create, or are they always destined to hold fragments of us, whether we intend them to or not?