William Maddox Feature: Part Two. Let's get personal...

Warning for those who haven't read Seers of Light yet... MAJOR (BUT JUICY) SPOILERS!

I'm on a roll with the blogging lately, (that will teach me to suffer a dry spell), and I have a confession to make. I've still been withholding a few secrets from you regarding the character and creation of Mr. Maddox. I mean, a girl has to have SOMEthing to talk about later, you know? And since this seems to be the week for character features, I figured I'd knock out the second half of WM's stats tonight. *Rubs hands together* All right. What have I neglected to mention?

It's not exactly a big secret that I'd intended Christian for my protagonist. I've said this before. And the scene where Christian Wright finally reveals his true feelings to Lily reflects my own initial misunderstanding of the relationships in Seers as well.

“What’s wrong with this, Lily? We make perfect sense!”

Hmm. Well, now. This sounds familiar--mainly because I went through kind of an inner struggle writing Seers of Light myself, and that struggle had a lot to do with letting go of my preconceptions of what I thought should be for these characters, and falling into the great unknown of what, in fact, was. Just like in real life, I don't know that I had enough faith in the very beginning about my characters walking their own paths and ending up happy for it. So, at first, anyway, I created this blond haired, blue-eyed British man--a real pretty boy--the hero type, you know? Sadly, I wasn't giving poor Christian much depth or credit at that point because I had no idea who he was. I was playing match maker, even though I didn't understand my own protagonist (Lily) yet. I didn't understand myself, either, apparently.

Silly, silly me.

I guess our first reaction is to be the damsel in distress. It's that surface romantic notion, right? And though I think I knew that William Maddox was going to be a vampire once I recognized that he existed in the story at all, the possibility of pairing him with Lily (pre-interactions, that is), seemed kind of uncomfortable. In fact (SECRET ALERT), I have to reveal something extra special now. I wrote a kissing scene for William and Lily very early on into writing Seers for the purpose of feeling this strange inkling out. And because I didn't know these two characters yet and was, essentially, jumping waaaay ahead just to be all crazy, I was really kind of bungled, confused and even a little disturbed by the whole thing! After all, Christian was her hero, right? I knew Christian. Sort of.

Didn't I?

HAH! I didn't know squat. I didn't know the half of it. I learned what I learned as I learned it--and not much before. So, as you see Lily's confusion, her doubt, he warming up and her finally giving in to what her heart really wanted... it was happening in sort of real time for me, too. William Maddox taught me a hell of a lesson. It's one I'm still trying desperately (especially at this point in my life) to take to heart. Don't try and predict how it should be. Don't place your strength in someone else's hands. Don't close your heart or mind to all possibilities out of fear, and most of all, expect that the unexpected will be far more glorious, far more moving and perfect than you could have ever imagined it to be. Lily ended up with someone she never would have picked at the start, and it left her altered in the best way. To me, William Maddox is kind of my symbol for courage and trust in the universal plan.

William isn't the typical hero. He's not the knight in shining armor, charging forth on a horse and grabbing Lily up before slaying a dragon. So why do we love him so much? Well, I'm a reasonable sort of girl, and I know all that snark and those hand-gasms had to help *smirks*, but I believe Maddox's character brings out a different side of women, too--a stronger, bolder, tougher, more self-aware breed that can still love hard and cry when they need to, and I'm all for that.

As I write this, I'm feeling kind of emotional because it's hitting home, but I'll save those more personal points for my Lily character feature. For now, I'll leave you with this tiny passage from my favorite William scene in Seers of Light:

Ginny looked at me. “Yummy, huh?” she asked.
“Delicious,” I said, choking on a particularly large lump of sugar. William got up from the table and a moment later returned with a glass of water. He sat down to his puzzle again and cleared his throat. I looked up to see him sliding the glass over next to my bowl. I smiled into my Fruit Loops. After a moment, William was again scowling over his puzzle, tapping his pen impatiently.