Comments on: How I Write – Part I https://dianagabaldon.com/2008/03/how-i-write-part-i/ Author of the Outlander Series Mon, 30 Mar 2026 14:45:02 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.40 By: Meg https://dianagabaldon.com/2008/03/how-i-write-part-i/comment-page-2/#comment-1512 Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:41:00 +0000 http://www.dianagabaldon.com/wordpress/2008/03/how-i-write-part-i/#comment-1512 I must’ve had my head elsewhere, as i’ve just heard about the Outlander series, and cannot put the first volume down!

I found this blog through your website and saw that this was a place to put comments…

Seeing the image of Claire for the graphic novel is incredible, and my suggestion for Jamie is this: Make him look like Gerard Butler, and I will surely swoon!

Keep up the great work, I love my first dive into Outlander books and simply can’t read fast enough.

]]> By: Irene https://dianagabaldon.com/2008/03/how-i-write-part-i/comment-page-2/#comment-1459 Sun, 13 Apr 2008 20:14:00 +0000 http://www.dianagabaldon.com/wordpress/2008/03/how-i-write-part-i/#comment-1459 Hi Everyone

I’m new to this blog and have read a great deal of it with interest. Sorry to hear about your dog, Diana – I just had to have one of my 2 cats put down and it is quite a wrench after 14 years.

BTW, I liked the picture of Claire, even though I thought the bottom of her face should be just a tiny bit fatter – not much, just a tiny bit – but, as you say, it is simply one picture of many more to come, so let’s all wait and see how the images develop. The important thing is that it is YOUR picture of what Claire looks like, not ours,and ultimately this is what counts.

On another note, I have just come back from a week away in the Highlands (not far for me, as I live in St Andrews – yes, the home of golf(sigh) but also the home of a nearly 600 year old university (yesss!) originally modelled on the same lines as the one in Paris that Jamie attended in his youth). Whilst there I visited Cullloden – or rather, re-visited it, having been there before the new Visitor Centre was constructed. It must be exciting to have an invitation to go to the official opening on the anniversary of the battle but I DO hope you are not disappointed. I won’t say much more, as you must make up your own mind but suffice to say that I was a bit disappointed for various reasons, some of which are still gelling in my mind as I write this. Oh, and be prepared for snow – we were snowed in for the first 2 days of our visit, which is not so usual for mid-April – snow showers yes, but not heavy snow as we experienced.

Anyway, keep working on the books – they are wonderful and thoroughly absorbing; also, thanks for being so thorough with your research (but only to be expected from someone such as yourself) – it really matters to some of us that historical details are correct bearing in mind current research, which rarely stands still.

Have a good trip to Scotland – and call into St Andrews if you have the time!

All the best

Wol the Wise

]]> By: KD https://dianagabaldon.com/2008/03/how-i-write-part-i/comment-page-2/#comment-1406 Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:28:00 +0000 http://www.dianagabaldon.com/wordpress/2008/03/how-i-write-part-i/#comment-1406 Well, now, isn’t this a very exciting and pleasant surprise?! :) I stumbled upon the news that you had started a blog, and was so excited to find it! I look forward to being a regular visitor. I find it so fascinating to learn the “how” of your writing! Thank you for choosing to communicate with us this way.
I just began my “umpteenth” re-read (I’ve lost count!) It is my tradition to reread the entire series before a new installment comes out, and having just finished the latest Lord John books, I couldn’t quite bring myself to leave that world. I also justified my guilty pleasure by deciding that with three kids, I may need all that time to get through all of them again before “An Echo in the Bone” arrives in my mailbox!
Again, thank you! This discovery made my day!

]]> By: Tracee https://dianagabaldon.com/2008/03/how-i-write-part-i/comment-page-2/#comment-1367 Fri, 14 Mar 2008 19:32:00 +0000 http://www.dianagabaldon.com/wordpress/2008/03/how-i-write-part-i/#comment-1367 FYI :) As a person who has taught in K-4 classrooms at one point or another, teachers do not always “catch” misspelled words in student work because maybe certain spelling patterns have not been taught or the teacher’s focus may be on a particular writing concept or the teacher is examining the misspellings for clues on how much to teach a phonics or grammar concept. (Sigh) And then again, you can not believe how difficult it is to get students to understand, “i” before “e” except after “c” :)

]]> By: Anita https://dianagabaldon.com/2008/03/how-i-write-part-i/comment-page-2/#comment-1365 Fri, 14 Mar 2008 17:21:00 +0000 http://www.dianagabaldon.com/wordpress/2008/03/how-i-write-part-i/#comment-1365 Diana:
It felt like withdrawal while you were gone…. so glad to have you back.

When you mentioned William with reference to the Great Dismal, I had to look it up (I also lived in Virginia for 15 years). I found the most fascinating diary of William Byrd about surveying the swamp in the early 1770s. Especially his comments about the settlers in North Carolina. You must be familiar with it if you’re exploring the swamp for storyline. I recommend it for your other fans who might be interested in colonial history.

Anita

]]> By: slfisher https://dianagabaldon.com/2008/03/how-i-write-part-i/comment-page-2/#comment-1337 Mon, 10 Mar 2008 03:01:00 +0000 http://www.dianagabaldon.com/wordpress/2008/03/how-i-write-part-i/#comment-1337 My daughter’s teacher has a master’s degree and she had ‘niece’ misspelled on the board the other day. Similarly, when my daughter was in kindergarten, there was something grammatically incorrect on the board, and I called their attention to it, and a group of teachers gathered in the room to try to figure it out!

]]> By: Diana Gabaldon https://dianagabaldon.com/2008/03/how-i-write-part-i/comment-page-2/#comment-1319 Sun, 09 Mar 2008 18:00:00 +0000 http://www.dianagabaldon.com/wordpress/2008/03/how-i-write-part-i/#comment-1319 Sunflowerfairy–

Names…well, sometimes a person just kind of “comes” with a name. Other times, I sort of cast around, trying things on for rhythm, ethnic plausibility, symbolic value (like “Ishmael,” the _houngan_ in VOYAGER–that’s a double-handed reference, both to the Ishmael of the Old Testament (the vengeful outsider, the wanderer), and to MOBY-DICK [g]).

Some characters come straight out of the historical reference material. The one-armed slave named “Temeraire” was real, for instance, as was M. Forez, the hangman from DRAGONFLY. There are a lot of bit-players in the books with real names (Arch Bug, for instance, was a real Scottish immigrant; his name, and the description of him as a man “aged 69″ was on the manifest of a ship sailing from Scotland to North Carolina. His history, though, is mine [g]).

Other names come from the several books of names I have; SCOTTISH CHRISTIAN NAMES, by Dunkling, or SCOTTISH SURNAMES, or one of several baby-naming books.

Worst comes to worst, there’s always the phone book. [g]

]]> By: Diana Gabaldon https://dianagabaldon.com/2008/03/how-i-write-part-i/comment-page-2/#comment-1318 Sun, 09 Mar 2008 17:54:00 +0000 http://www.dianagabaldon.com/wordpress/2008/03/how-i-write-part-i/#comment-1318 Dear Midge–

Oh, it _is_ magic. Not the slightest doubt about that.

It’s just that you do the hard work _first_, and _then_ the magic happens. [g]

]]> By: Diana Gabaldon https://dianagabaldon.com/2008/03/how-i-write-part-i/comment-page-2/#comment-1317 Sun, 09 Mar 2008 17:53:00 +0000 http://www.dianagabaldon.com/wordpress/2008/03/how-i-write-part-i/#comment-1317 Sharon–

It’s also possible that the teacher didn’t mark misspellings because s/he didn’t recognize them _as_ misspellings.

I know it’s not PC these days to criticize people for not being able to spell (it’s all genetic, presumably, so it’s “unfair” to expect people without the spelling gene to learn how)–but dang.

I used to correct misspellings in the permission notes my kids brought home _all the time_ (which I doubt endeared me to the teachers, but on the other hand–all my kids _can_ spell, and had noted the errors themselves. Couldn’t very well say, “Well, that’s OK, since she’s the teacher.” [cough])

Man, though, watching the news-crawl or the closed-captioning on TV shows…[clutching head]. All right, the occasional typo is unavoidable, but “ice sickels”? Come on!

]]> By: nightsmusic https://dianagabaldon.com/2008/03/how-i-write-part-i/comment-page-2/#comment-1316 Sun, 09 Mar 2008 14:38:00 +0000 http://www.dianagabaldon.com/wordpress/2008/03/how-i-write-part-i/#comment-1316 Last comment on this but,

Sharon,

I have firefox on all my computers and I wouldn’t have anything else. It installs like a charm, has a great interface and a bazillion add-ons to make it exactly what I want.

I have to say, Diana (may I call you that? I feel odd doing that) I can hear my gran and grandsire when I read the dialect in your books. It brings back a lot of memories :)

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