Edward, William John.
So I write like a method actor acts. To put myself in a chapter, I need to be there with my character, feeling what he’s feeling. And that’s why this one took so long. Carlisle’s shoes in this chapter are not ones I want to wear, for reasons that are very apparent, I think. He’s in a lot of pain. Yet at the same time, he’s a lot of fun to write because he’s changed so much in six years–and yet, of course, he hasn’t. At his root is still the caring guy that Bella used to know–it’s just going to take some time to ferret that guy out. In the meantime, she’s got “Will,” and he’s…different.
Anyway. I don’t anticipate this story updating quite this slowly throughout its tenure, although the fact that I know I can’t write it with due speed is the main reason it’s not on FFnet. A good chunk of it is written–this chapter took me up over 15,000 words in the document. But they’re disconnected pieces–a fragment of dialogue here, a description there. I know exactly where this whole story is going…thanks for hanging with me while I make it get there. 🙂
Who is William? Canon doesn’t give us a whole lot to go on (including his name, which I’ve plucked from examining several ship and church registers of the era), and what it does give us isn’t terribly historically accurate. But a few things serve as good guides.
“He also believed very strongly in the reality of evil.” –Twilight, p. 331
“He had a rather harsh view of the world, which I was already beginning to question by the time that I changed.” —New Moon, p. 36
Yet what has to be reconciled about William is that Carlisle is his offspring. One thing I continue to learn as I grow further and further from the “Screw you all” knee-jerk reactions of adolescence is how much of who my parents are is often expressed in my own behavior. So creating William then, is a backformation process—taking the elements of Carlisle, both negative and positive, that point toward what his parent might have been like, and from that extrapolating the man who raised him.
Like Edward Sr., there’s much about William that is guarded. He’s driven by the overwhelming need to present the right “face” to his congregation and to his son (a habit which I think Carlisle inherited), but the result is a great distance between himself and Carlisle. At the same time, Carlisle developed into a man with the capacity to love deeply, and that doesn’t come from nothing. As far as I’m concerned, William, like most fathers, wants everything for his son—he just doesn’t know how to get it. So there’s a constant tension between what he’s trying to do, which is to protect Carlisle by eradicating evil from the world, and what Carlisle perceives him as doing. And of course, borrow the fact that one of Carlisle’s major problems is that he’s almost as bull-headed as Edward, and you get two guys who are bound to bump heads a bit.
So in this chapter, I wanted to show William on his own, without Carlisle, so that we can get a picture of what his worldview (and importantly, his view of Carlisle) looks like while we introduce a bit of his subplot. William is in a race against time, but of course, he’ll never tell his son.
As with all my chapters, but especially these 1667 chapters, I have to give huge thanks to my beta, Ophenhome. She keeps me very much on track with the history, down to the level of individual turns of phrase to make sure that the dialogue I’ve chosen fits with the time period I’m writing. I’m deeply indebted to her for her help.
Happy reading!