Diana Gabaldon Quotes

I went with the old adage that you should write what you know. What I knew was 18th century Britain, so what I decided I would do is write a novel based on my dissertation research.

There's just so many great stories in the past that you can know a little bit about, but you can't know it all, and that's where imagination can work.

I don't write drafts. I write from the beginning to the end, and when it's finished, it's done.

I write totally spontaneously. I actually write fiction by hand - that always seems to startle people. I think the reason I do that is to bypass the thinking part of me and get to the more unconscious part, which is where all the good ideas seem to be.

There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it's like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.

All of the little entries in 'The Cows' were written in an irregular way. There might be one or two done one day, and then two weeks might go by or four weeks, and then they were put in an order or sequence.

My first two novels were set in the past, and that freed me up in a lot of ways; it allowed me to find my way into my story and my characters through research.

One thing I can tell you is this, that I am not a methodical writer.

As a writer, I can't really take days off. Writing is like creating an art. Once you stop writing, you can lose your rhythm and context, meaning that your writing may lose its power.

Partly because of the way I write - I don't work with an outline or in a straight line. I work where I can see things happening, and so I get lots and lots of little bits to start with, and I'm doing the research at the same time.

I think I'm too lazy a writer to do something like historical fiction. You have to do so much research. I just write what I know.

I've been told by people who write historical novels that you just sort of write the emotional truth first, the story at the core, and then you go back and research it at the end.

One of the reasons I'm not so keen on people calling me an "experimental" writer is that it suggests the work is about the experiment, when it's always the opposite - any "experimentation" is dictated by the material.

The thing for someone just starting off [in writing] is to write. You need to have limber fingers, whether you write with your fingers or you type on your laptop, but you need to have a limber mind and you need to be able to write without judging what you've written, at least right away, and without editing right away.

I always work from outline and almost always write out of sequence. It just works for me.

I write right off the typer. I call it my "machinegun." I hit it hard, usually late at night while drinking wine and listening to classical music on the radio and smoking mangalore ganesh beedies.

I think every writer struggles in some way with writers block. The trick is to plan out what you are going to say beforehand. I found out that if you make an outline you're much less likely to get blocked when you get into the middle of the story.

But, later, coming back and reading what I have produced, I am unable to detect the difference between what came easily and when I had to sit down and say, "Well, now it's writing time and now I'll write.

I mostly write short stories. They are best written in a continuous creative process. You have a feel of immediacy.

When I'm writing, I thoroughly enjoy it. It just goes on.

The way to rock oneself back into writing is this. First gentle exercise in the air. Second the reading of good literature. It is a mistake to think that literature can be produced from the raw. One must get out of life...one must become externalised; very, very concentrated, all at one point, not having to draw upon the scattered parts of one's character, living in the brain.

I've always been drawn to writing historical characters. The best stories are the ones you find in history.

I've found that writing novels is an all-absorbing experience - both physical and mental - and I have to do it every day in order to keep the rhythm, to keep myself focused on what I'm doing.

Technique in the minds of many is something rigid, something like a formula that you impose on the material; but in the best stories it is something organic, something that grows out of the material, and this being the case, it is different for every story of any account that has ever been written.

Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on.