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DIANA GABALDON:
By Paul Freeman [June 2014 Interview] Diana Gabaldon was in the midst of writing a first novel purely as a practice exercise. Then something surprising happened. A literary agent eagerly offered to represent the not-yet-completed book, titled “Outlander.” A spark of inspiration for the original “Outlander” story had come while Gabaldon was watching a “Doctor Who” episode that included an 18th century Highland Scot. A lifetime of reading also stirred her muse. Gabaldon and husband Douglas Watkins, who have three grown children, are based in Arizona. Holding degrees in Zoology, Marine Biology and Quantitative Behavior Ecology, she had spent a dozen years as a university professor. She had written scientific articles and textbooks, as well as comic book stories for Walt Disney. But Gabaldon didn’t know if she could pen a novel... until she actually immersed herself in the process. “Outlander” is the tale of Claire, a married 1940s combat nurse who travels through time and falls in love with an 18th century Scottish warrior named Jamie. Upon publication, the 1991 book became a sensation, spawning seven more books so far, plus a spin-off series and a graphic novel. The eighth book in the “Outlander” series, “Written In My Own Heart’s Blood,” has just been published. It follows Gabaldon's characters into American Revolution-era Philadelphia, onto the battlefields. The epic new novel again offers thrilling intercutting, as the characters plunge into highly dramatic crises in both the 18th and 20th centuries. It’s an exciting time for Gabaldon, one the imaginative author could never have dreamed up, when she put pen to paper and began her “practice” novel. In addition to talking about the latest novel, Gabaldon is busy promoting the much buzzed-about Starz “Outlander” series, which is being produced by “Galactica” showrunner Ron D. Moore. It premieres August 9th on the Starz channel. She spent 10 days in Scotland in February, watching the filming. The producers even invited her to play a cameo role. In the midst of her hectic schedule, Gabaldon graciously took time to speak with Pop Culture Classics. POP CULTURE CLASSICS: Each time you approach a new novel, do you enjoy the challenge of finding new emotional and narrative territory, new themes to explore? DIANA GABALDON: Oh, absolutely. I think there are a great number of very successful writers who are, in essence, using a very similar story each time. And a similar structure, even though the characters and circumstances differ. I never like to do anything that I’ve done before, which, on the good side, means it’s always a constant challenge and a constant interest to discover each new book and to try out interesting, risky sorts of things. On the downside, many people are accustomed to getting a more or less predictable read from an author that they know. And since I don’t do that, it throws them for a loop. And so always, whenever a new book comes out, there will be a very small, vocal minority, maybe two or three percent of the readers, who are just outraged that I didn’t do what I did in the previous book or that I haven’t rewritten “Outlander.” They say, “But I loved that book, because it had more Scotland with the kilts.” And I say, “Well, too bad” [laughs] “Were you not paying attention in the second book? Colloden? The whole Highlanders system was destroyed. PCC: With the new book, were you surprised at any of the nuances of character or the themes that emerged? GABALDON: Absolutely, yeah. The theme is never really a problem. That’s organic and grows out of the material itself. Fairly early on, I know what the theme of the book is going to be. Each of my books can be distilled down to a single, one-word theme. And I recognize that fairly early on as I work. I don’t write with an outline. I don’t plan the books ahead of time and I don’t write in a straight line. So I don’t usually know any of this stuff ahead of time. But, as I say, it kind of fits organically, as I work. So I know the theme. But the nuances and what characters do, that’s often a massive surprise to me, especially when someone dies and I wasn’t expecting them to - it’s very traumatic. PCC: So what was the one-word theme that applies to the new book? GABALDON: It’s betrayal, which, of course, has the flip side of loyalty, depending which characters’ lens you’re viewing the story through - it could be one or the other. But those are both pertaining to the sense of individual obligation between people. PCC: With each book, do you feel a pressure to please your readers, to meet expectations, to equal the success of the previous books? GABALDON: No [laughs]. You couldn’t possibly write with readers in mind, just in terms of simple logistics. If you have more than one reader, there’s no way of pleasing them all, so why bother? The thing is, I don’t approve of art by committee, so to speak. It’s got to be a solo effort or it’s not going to be good. And also, it just takes a very long time. It’s just me and the page. And the book will be the best thing that I can possible do, given who I am and what I have to work with at the given time. And it will appeal to a lot of people - I hope. And there will probably be other people who take issue with something I said or did. That’s just how it works out. PCC: The fact that it’s not predictable, do you feel that it’s a big advantage that you don’t feel constrained by any sort of genre conventions? GABALDON: Oh, yeah. That’’s a huge advantage. It was accidental in that my first book, “Outlander,” I wrote for practice. I was not intending to show it to anyone, let alone try to publish it. And therefore, it didn’t really matter, what I chose to do in it. I’m an omnivorous reader. I learned to read at the age of three and never stopped. I read, literally, thousands of books in a year, about maybe two thousand. That’s a lot of books [laughs]. And I will read anything. So I just used any literary device that I found attractive or interesting or that I just wanted to try out. Consequently, that book cannot be described by anyone in 25 words or less. It either has no genre or it has all of them. Anyway, as I say, I wrote that in perfect freedom, because I wasn’t going to show it to anyone. So I didn’t care. All I had to satisfy was myself - and that it should be a good story... which it is, I say with all modesty. And anyway, that kind of worked. I got an agent before I actually finished writing the book. And, when it was done, I gave it to him and I said, “There’s more to the story, but I thought I should stop while I could still lift it.” He took it off and showed it to five editors, three of whom called back, pretty much instantly, wanting to buy it. So he was able to negotiate amongst them and emerged with a three-book contact. And, bing! I was a novelist - with a book I’d never thought of showing to anyone. And consequently the publisher who bought it, had a heck of a time trying to market it. These books have been sold as absolutely everything over the years. I’ve seen them sold, with evident success, as literature, fiction, historical fiction, historical non-fiction. It’s in the non-fiction section of Foyle’s book store in London. When I pointed this out to the clerk, he said, “Well, Miss Kitty Foyle...” - who was about 92 at the time and still alive - “... is the person who decides where books go in this store. She’s read your books and evidently she believes in time travel.” [Laughs] In other stores it’s variously found in science-fiction, fantasy, mystery, romance, military history, gay-and-lesbian fiction, and horror. All for the same series of books. I’ve also won an award from Romance Writers of America, though in fact, it was for Best Book of the Year, rather than for Best Romance. They make a distinction. I was nominated for four Romance awards and I told my husband, “I’m not gong to win any of those awards, because it’s not a romance,” which is exactly what the Romance Writers thought, too. But I did win that other award. On the other end, I have won a Quill Award in the Science-Fiction, Fantasy and Horror category, beating out both George R.R. Martin and Stephen King in the process. We kind of cover the territory.
The fact that you weren’t necessarily aiming at this kind of career, do you now believe that this is what you were born to do? GABALDON: Oh, I do, yeah. From the time that I actually felt “Outlander” kind of stir under my hands and become live, I was pretty sure that’s what I was supposed to do. I didn’t know how and wasn’t sure I could do it, but I knew it was what I wanted to do and you kind of develop faith. Any writer has those days when you sit down and you think, “Well, I knew how to write yesterday, but I haven’t a clue today.” [Laughs]. You just have faith that it’s going to come back and you start writing anyway. PCC: When they did decide to publish the first one, I guess you had all sorts of additional material, so you knew there could be more books? GABALDON: I just knew there would be more. As I say, I don’t plan the books out ahead of time, so I had no idea how much more. But I could see the Jacobite Rising kind of coming towards these people. The first book stops before the Rising actually gets underway. And so I knew I wanted to find out what happened during the Rising and go as far as the battle of Culloden. I thought that might be where it ended, because a lot of things did end there. That’s why I told my agent, “There’s more.” Well, he told the publishers who wanted it, “You know, she’s says there’s more.” And they all said, “Well, trilogies are very popular these days. Do you think she can write three?” Being a good agent, he said, “I’m sure she could.” Anyway, I never said it was a trilogy. I just said there’s more. PCC: Are you mapping out the next book in your head now? GABALDON: Well, as I say, I don’t plan them out, but I do know there is a next one. And I have begun writing little bits of it. Some things bubble up. I’m facing a very intense summer of travel and promotion and book-touring, because there’s not only the new book, but also the oncoming television series based on the books, which also requires a certain amount of my time. PCC: As far as the characters, do you relate principally with Claire? Are there bits of you in every character you write? GABALDON: Well, there would have to be, wouldn’t there? [laughs]. There’s a local group of fans who take me out to tea once in a while, to pick my brain about new books. And on one of these occasions, they got started on the character of Black Jack Randall, who is a sadistic, repellent pervert. And they got started on him and they’re going, “Oh, he’s so loathsome, he’s so disgusting, makes my skin crawl.” I’m sitting there, sipping my tea, thinking, “You have no idea you’re talking to Black Jack Randall, do you?” [Laughs] Because, no, they never think of that. They always ask, “How much of you is in Claire?” Because there’s a first-person narration and the first book is told entirely from her point of view. And it’s a natural, intuitive assumption that this must be my voice and it must be autobiographical - which it’s not. But it doesn’t seem to occur to them that all of these other characters are also coming out of my brain and my ethos, my cultural milieu, as well as the external research. Most characters are not based on any live person, with a couple of minor exceptions. There are some real, historical figures like Bonnie Prince Charlie, George Washington and so forth. It’s historical fiction. You do occasionally need to have one of these people on screen. And so you deal with them mostly through research and what I call “artistic respect,” as in, you try to handle them as accurately as you can, mostly by reading that they wrote and getting a feeling for who they were, what they were like. And my bottom line is to try not to show a historical character doing something worse than what I’m sure he did do. Beyond that, there are a few long-time friends of mine, hanging around on the Compuserve Literary Forum for many years. Now we’re called the Books and Writers Community. This was not in any way a writers group. It was just people who liked books. But there were a few writers there and one of them is the person who eventually introduced me to my first agent. So occasionally I will take one of my online friends from this group and use them as a walk-on, you might say. I do use at least an approximation of their appearance and their regular name and then they’re an historical character in the book. so it’s just sort of an inside joke. I always tell the people that I’m doing this, to make sure that they don’t have any objection. But I haven’t had anyone object yet. PCC: You mentioned research. For some authors, that’s the tedious bit. For you, is it one of the most enjoyable aspects of writing? GABALDON: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I decided to write historical fiction for my practice book, because I was a research professor and I knew my way around a library. All my degrees are in the sciences, but I still liked to hang around the library. I said, it seems easier to look things up than to make them up and, if I have no imagination, I can steal things from the historical record, which works pretty well. But yes, I’ve always been fascinated by libraries and the past and just finding out things, not even of a historical nature. I’m just endlessly curious. PCC: The background in the sciences, does that inform your writing process? GABALDON: Oh, everything you are as a writer informs what it is that you write. People always say, “Well, do you use your scientific background in your works?” And I always say, “Well, yes, but not in the way you’re probably thinking.” It’s just that I have that sort of experience of observation as a scientist that you might not have as a non-scientist. And that particular observation underlies things without in any way being obvious, for the most part. For example, my Ph.D. is in Ecology, so I have characters sitting out in the forest, having a conversation. Okay, I’ve done a lot of field work in forests. I know what kind of animals and birds and so forth are likely to have been there or to have left their traces. So when I’m writing what I call “the under-painting of the scene,” which is those little details of place or ambiance or body language, that kind of make it three-dimensional, while I’m working on that, yeah, I’m drawing on my knowledge of what’s in a forest. What does it smell like? What can we expect to see? If I’m hearing a bird behind me, is it high or low? I’m hearing it right behind my left shoulder. It’s almost certainly a hermit thrush. And then I check to see if hermit thrushes did in fact, live in Scotland. And so forth. We go from there. The thing is, I know a bird that I hear at that level in a forest is going to be that particular sort of bird. It’s going to occupy this ecological niche. So even if it’s not a hermit thrush, I can find out fairly easily what sort of bird occupies that niche in that ecosystem. So it’s largely unconscious, it’s just a matter of my own experience informing things, so to speak. PCC: The time travel aspect that just came out of Claire’s character, it wasn’t pre-planned? GABALDON: No, it wasn’t at all. She just wouldn’t shut up and talk like an 18th century person [laughs]. She just kept making smart-ass modern remarks. And so, I said, “To heck with this, I’m not going to fight with you all the way through this page. Since no one’s ever going to see this, it doesn’t matter what bizarre thing I do. Go ahead and be modern. I’ll figure out how you got there later.” So the time travel is all her fault [laughs]. PCC: Had you previously had a fascination with the subject of time travel? GABALDON: Oh, yeah. Like most geekish kids, I read a lot of fantasy and science-fiction through my teenage years and early twenties. And yeah, there was quite a bit of time travel stuff. Now when I realized that I was writing about time travel, I stopped reading any other time travel stories, because, if you're going to do that, you have to figure out your own theory of exactly how things work, not only in a physical way, but in the way of consequences and what you might call the “moral ambiguity” of time travel. And I didn’t want to be influenced by anyone else’s system. So I did not read any travel until about my sixth book, at which point, I felt comfortable enough in my own system that I wouldn’t be bothered by reading other people’s works. PCC: Why do you think your books have sparked such a universally resonant chord? GABALDON: Well, they’re very honest and they’re very human. If you ask people what they like about the books, you get all kinds of answers. They like the adventurous plot. They love the relationships, the romance. Some people like the sex scenes, particularly. A lot of people like the medical aspects, either watching Claire do medicine or they’re interested in botanical medicine. Some people are interested in the social-religious-cultural background of the Scottish Highlands. Some people are just fascinated by historical details. But the more you talk to them, the more it all comes down to the characters. They like these people. They identify with them and they want very much to join in their lives, be part of their world and know what happens to them next. PCC: You mentioned “Outlander” coming to the screen. It must be an exciting time, watching it come to life that way. GABALDON: Oh, wow! It is. It’s definitely fascinating. I’ve never been close to a TV production before. So it’s completely fascinating to see how all the details work. And I’m so impressed at the quality of the production team and what they’re turning out. They invited me to come to Scotland for 10 days in February and more or less stay on set and see how things worked. And it was fabulous. I got to sit in on production meetings and watch table reads and actually got to be in the production. They invited me to do a small cameo. So, for two days, I was actually a television actor [laughs], which was an eye-opening experience. PCC: What was it like to actually enter the world that you had created and be one of the characters? GABALDON: Well, now, that was extremely interesting, because the sets are so beautiful and well designed that you don’t have the feeling that you are in a set. You actually feel like you have walked into an 18th century great hall or kitchen or whatever. And it’s just fascinating to be there. However, it is, at the same time, a TV production, which means that you’re going through this very long, tedious day to get, say a minute-and-a-half of this very long, sweeping shot, which I was in the middle of - I had two quick lines there - and there were several hundred other people, which is why it took so long. But the director, in honor of my coming, designed this beautiful, ambitious, 360-degree shot that roams through the whole great hall, up to gallery, where I was, and back down. And for that to work, every one of 200 people has to do exactly the right thing at the right time, not be in the way of the main characters, who come rushing through and things like that. Everybody needs to do their part right. And so it took like 25 takes, that’s five hours, to get that one shot. So they’d do a shot and then there’d be like 15 minutes, where they’d reset I everything and fix everything that might have gone wrong the time before. Makeup and hair people come rushing out of, I call it “the wings,” but it’s just off set. They come rushing out like this herd of caterpillars and swarm all over you. The minute they shout, “Cut!,” they’re out there, powdering you and tucking in the ends of your wigs and things like that. You don’t really get the feeling that you are acting, in the sense of a stage play. You’re just trying to do this very specific thing and do it the right way. So there was no sense of stage fright or any nervousness about it. It was very straight-forward. Also I had seen enough of the footage of the show to realize that even the totally professional actors very frequently blow up in their lines, trip over their feet or get something wrong. And it’s not a big deal. They shout, “Cut!” and do it again. PCC: When you see the actors step into these roles that you’ve put so much time and love into, is it the way you envisioned it? The casting? GABALDON: Oh, totally fascinating. It’s just amazing to watch these people do their magic and become Jamie and Claire and the other people. I will say that the production team has done just a fabulous job in casting. I don’t see how they could have found better people to do this. PCC: Was it difficult to let go and know that someone else had the reins of everything you had created? GABALDON: No. I would totally not like to be in charge of something like that. I don’t feel at all qualified to do that. for one thing, I would be constantly worried that I was going to destroy everything. As it is, it’s not my responsibility. They have been extremely courteous and kind about including me in everything. I get to see what they’re doing. They send me the scripts ahead of time, so I can comment on them. And I make very minor comments, but only when I see something specific that seems to require it. And they pay attention to my comments, though they’re not legally required to do so. So that’s good. They came out to talk to me before we started this. Ron Moore [“Galactica” creator] and his production partner, Maril Davis spent two days at my house, talking over the characters, the storyline, the backstory and explaining their notions of adaptation to me and exactly what might be involved in transforming it to a visual medium, some of which I already knew, both from watching films and because I used to write comic books for Walt Disney. In fact, I do know how to render a story in visual images and maintain a flow that way, and how that is different from text, which is a major difference. But, no, it was fabulous to see that happen. Part of it is sheer good luck, though, that we should have landed in such capable hands. PCC: Also, it seems like a perfect time for an adaptation, with audiences so enthusiastically embracing fantasy these days. GABALDON: Yes, I suppose the timing couldn’t be better. You know, God bless George [R.R. Martin], a friend of mine, for kind of breaking ground and paving the way with his “Game of Thrones.” PCC: Are you hoping that the show might bring new readers back to the books? GABALDON: Well, yes, I do. It pretty much does always work that way, or so I’m told by my literary agent and a number of other people. Having a book translate into film or TV sort of confers this weird sort of credibility on it, as if people assume, “Well, if someone thought it was good enough to make a movie of, it must be a good book,” which is, in fact, not always the case [laughs]. But as one of my, thankfully, ex-publishers once told me, “We’ve sold a lot of books from lousy movies,” just because of this visibility aspect. Now, if it’s a good film or show or whatever, then people are eager for more details. They want more than is actually shown on the screen and luckily it’s right there in the book. PCC: What’s it been like when you’ve gone to events like Comic-Con and interacted with the fans? GABALDON: Oh, that’s great. But I’ve been doing cons for years and years and years as an author. It’s not any different now. It’s just the material that we’re discussing is as novel to me as it is to them. But yes, I’ve been interacting with fans for 26 years. PCC: It must be rewarding to see how much the books have meant to them. GABALDON: Yes, it is. Writing is a very solitary act. And the act of creation has its own special joy to it. But that act is not complete until what you have composed or written or made actually reaches someone else and has an impact on them, whether for good or bad [laughs]. And it’s very rewarding to have people tell me what the books have meant to them. Or just when they say, “It was great!” But I really like it when people tell me these stories about something specific that the books meant to them or how they really liked it, because... That makes it very personal. PCC: You play a big part in their lives. GABALDON: Yeah, now that’s a little scary [laughs]. PCC: And it’s only going to get bigger. GABALDON: Well, it is, actually. I was having lunch with Sam and Caitriona [Heughan and Balfe, who play Jamie and Claire], the two leads in the show and sort of talking over the kind of nuts and bolts of handling being well known and a public figure and all of that. Of course, it’ll be much worse for them than it is for me, because it’s attached to their faces. They can’t step aside. I can. I can easily go out in public and not be recognized. I very seldom am recognized. But what I told them is, to this point, we, meaning them and me, because they’d been to a huge fan event with me and were much staggered by it, but I said, “To this point, we’ve been protected by the fact that the books are very large and complex. People that have serious mental issues don’t have the attention span to read them [laughs].” So, in fact, I’ve never had a dangerous nut... a few benign ones [laughs]. But really, absolutely nothing in terms of malignance or feeling personally threatened or anything like that, which does happen to some authors, especially if they write in what I call “the darker genres.” But I said, “The minute the show hits, now that filter is removed, because everybody can watch television and we will start getting a much wider segment of the population being interested in you, me and the books. But it’s still going to be easier for me.” I said, “It’s like boiling a frog, increasing popularity. You just handle it as it goes along and you get used to it and you know what to do. But you, they’re going to throw in at the deep end.” [Laughs]. PCC: Did Sam and Caitriona have questions for you about the characters? GABALDON: Yes, to some extent, Sam particularly. He was the first person cast. So he and I would talk at length about the books and the characters. He was in Norway, filming. There’s nothing else to do up there [laughs]. And Caitriona, less so, but she really doesn’t need to. She inhabits that character and understands her very fully. Some of the other actors I talk to. Some of them not. PCC: It must be an exhilarating time for you, waiting for the show to be unveiled. GABALDON: It is. I’ve been thrilled with the whole production so far. They’ve shown me things and it’s going to be a fabulous show. It’s going to be really good. For the latest news on Diana Gabaldon and the “Outlander” series, visit www.dianagabaldon.com. |
Diana Gabaldon