Here is a new interview Diana Gabaldon did with Variety.
From Variety:
Viewers have only just stepped into the time-traveling world of “Outlander,” Starz’s sprawling historical drama, but author Diana Gabaldon has been exploring the world of Claire (Caitriona Balfe) and Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan) for more than 20 years through eight bestselling novels. With over 20 million books sold and a freshman TV season complete, Gabaldon looks back on rediscovering her literary debut in a new medium.
Read the rest of the interview after the jump!
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What has been the most satisfying part of having “Outlander” on television?
It’s wonderful just to see how beautifully they’ve realized the story. Unlike many readers, I didn’t actually expect it to be a literal page-by-page translation. I understand what an adaptation is, and they’ve done just a fantastic job with the adaptation. It is “Outlander,” which anyone who’s read and loved the books would recognize and love it immediately, but at the same time there’s this wonderful sense of novelty and discovery about it, because there have to be changes in order to make it fit the television format — the way that they have taken the story apart and reassembled it with these nice little interpolations and fantastic additions. Rediscovering it as a whole new medium has been just wonderful.
Has watching the adaptation process reminded you of anything you might’ve forgotten, or helped you see the story in a new light?
While I wrote the book quite a long time ago, I do remember it — it is a continuing story, as far as I’m concerned. But the thing is that so many new people keep discovering it all the time and they talk to me, and that kind of keeps it very fresh in my mind. Also, the production people have been so kind about including me. I’m a consultant on the show, but as my agent said to me when we signed the contract, “That can mean anything or nothing, depending on how well they like you,” and luckily they seem to like me.
They do show me the outlines and the scripts and the daily footage, which is absolutely fascinating to watch, but that being so, this happens very slowly. You see one scene shot 25 times in one day, which is totally fascinating, but while you’re watching it you’re remembering, “this is what I was thinking when I was writing that part of the book,” and so it brings it all back very gradually as you’re working. So you see which parts are different and you think, “Oh, that’s cool.” Not in a way that, “Oh, I wish I had written that,” because it wouldn’t have fitted the way I wrote it, but just in this visual medium, this is a terrific thing to have done.
As you said, a book can’t be adapted literally word-for-word, so are there any changes that you particularly appreciated — not in an “I wish I’d written that” way, just that struck you as a good choice?
Oh yeah. I’d say a number of the things that they’ve done with Gary Lewis’ character, Colum. He’s a very strong and personable leader in the books, but he’s not anything like this firecracker Gary makes him, and I think that’s terrific what they’ve done there.
You made a cameo in season one, but are you tempted to write an episode next season?
Perhaps. When Ron [Moore] and Maril [Davis] came out to talk to me, before they’d even pitched the show, they said, “Would you be interested in writing a script?” and I said, “Well, I might.” I said, “But not now.” I said “two reasons: One is that I don’t want to be responsible in any way for lousing up this vital first season. I’ve never written a script before. I think I could probably learn how to write one, but I don’t want to be learning on your time, as it were. It’s vital that this succeeds, so this first season should certainly be done by professionals. After that, if we get a second season, I might see.”
The second thing is that I was coming into the final phases, what I call the final frenzy, of “Written in My Own Heart’s Blood,” and it takes me three or four years to write a book. It proceeds very slowly at first, and then it picks up to walking pace as I call it, which is about a thousand words a day. When we get to the end I’ll be working 12 or 14 hours a day and barely eating or sleeping. There is just nothing else but the book. It’s like being on some very addictive drug. It’s like being plugged into electricity all of the time. Just fantastically exciting, but you don’t do anything else. I said, “I can’t afford to need to be writing a script when I hit that. That can’t be in my way.” We have started to talk about the possibility, and I would be very interested in doing it.
Read the rest of the interview at the source
Great interview!
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