As part of the Sudden Storm (wasn’t that the title of an old soap opera? Or was it “The Gathering Storm”? My parents both worked in the school system (principal and teacher, though not the same school) and so hired a housekeeper who would be there for the couple of hours between our arrival from school and our mother getting home—her name was Annie Mae, and she was wonderful. She also watched soap operas while ironing, which is how I come to know that…) — <ahem>
Anyway, someone on another site had posted a link to an article from tvinsider, which I gather quoted Matt Roberts as saying that when I say no they (the production people) listen to me and don’t do things that I strongly disagree with. <cough>
That’s what caused me to write the Following, just by way of explanation and exegesis, because most people know nothing about the hows and whys of television (there’s no reason why they should, after all).
Hence my reply:
Dear X—
Well, naturally he’s not going to say in public that they ignore my advice (and objections) when it suits them, though very plainly they do. <g>
People who work in show business are, as a rule, very circumspect in what they say, because there’s a really strong probability of it showing up in print (and what shows up will not necessarily be what the quotee actually said, either. Often things are paraphrased, and paraphrased (or condensed) in a way that is actually at odds with the original statement).
I try not to do that, either: a) I actually like the show’s production people, and believe that they are in fact usually <cough> doing what they think is the right (or necessary*) thing, and b) I’d quite like to keep on working with them. They do, by contract, have to pay me a consultant’s fee; they don’t have to send me scripts or talk to me, let alone invite me to write the occasional episode.
And c) I have enough experience with the media (thirty-three years of it, in fact…) to understand i) how it works, and ii) how it doesn’t
Let me just observe that in thirty-odd years of being interviewed about my books, I have seen exactly three interviews that were accurate. (I don’t accuse the interviewers of deliberate messing-aboutness; a lot of it is just minor carelessness (they read my Wikipedia page—which is Totally Not Accurate to begin with, since I have neither the time nor interest to visit it every day and correct the nonsense people put in there—and use that as background; or they ask me minor things (like where I got my various degrees) and—not realizing that there are THREE state universities in Arizona, and all three of them include “Arizona” and “University” in their names—and I have two degrees from one of these institutions (Northern Arizona University), but worked for twelve years at one of the others (Arizona State University)—they more often than not default to the one university (University of Arizona) with which I’ve never had the slightest relationship.)
None of that’s at all important; it’s just a very minor illustration of how easy it is for a print version of a verbal interview to end up implying something different than what the person actually said (or meant). And it’s counterproductive to all concerned for there to be an appearance of serious disagreement among the people associated with a show. (This is why actors, directors, etc. seldom bad-mouth each other (or the show’s production), regardless of whether there’s actual friction. And usually, there’s not.)
* “necessary” – NOT infrequently, there are actual unavoidable physical reasons for the show doing something in a way that ideally, they wouldn’t have. For instance, I’m seeing a good bit of email from people who live near Monmouth, complaining that while EVERYONE knows (and it’s certainly part of the historical record) that the Battle of Monmouth was fought in the summer and was remarkable for the heat of the day, the show has arbitrarily decided to shoot it in winter, ferGawd’ssake, and how could I “let” them do that?
O. K. There’s no reason why most TV viewers should know anything about the mechanics of television production, and most of them don’t. However, part of said mechanics deals with the shooting schedule.
(This is one of the reasons for shooting two episodes as a block; so that dates and locations can be shuffled in case of need.) A shooting schedule normally proceeds from Episode One onward. The only (well, normally) reason why episodes would be shot out of sequence would be in case of an important location that covered more than one episode—hence the show spending a couple of months in South Africa, in order to shoot pieces of Season Three.)
So the Battle of Monmouth falls at the end of Season Seven. They’re filming it in Scotland. The end of the season is in fall; it’s frequently Very Cold, but it’s seldom hot, and when it is, it’s unpredictable. There’s no economically/physically reasonable way of making a whole battle look like it’s having heat-stroke, and–given that the people who know it was hot during the battle number maybe a couple of hundred at most—and the fact that the heat does not really affect any of the characters they’re using—they just let it be cold. I mean, producing a show is always about picking your battles (“battles” used in the broadest sense, meaning encompassing weather and locations, and unpredictable availability of cast or resources).
Now, returning to Matt <cough>—we get along very well, and always have. I visited the (hugely expanded) studio sometime last year (last year is a Complete Blur, for assorted reasons), and had a long, congenial chat about a whole lot of things, among me, my husband, Matt and Maril. We talked about Claire’s parents (my POV being that they’re dead <g>, but if Matt wanted to do a storyline about them in the Prequel, it was OK with me (he did, and it worked brilliantly—the actors are wonderful!)).
In the course of this long and very far-ranging conversation, we discussed things I was doing in Book Ten and what other projects I might have in mind, no matter how far out (I do, of course, have the Prequel Book (1) in my TBD pile—and no, it won’t have Claire’s parents in it; they’re dead.) Repeat after me:
“The books are the books and the show is the show.”
Master Raymond was mentioned (I don’ know by whom), and I said that a) I do have pieces of the book about Master Raymond, but that’s about #4 in my stack—meaning I write down stuff when it comes to me, but b) I’m not actually working in a regular way on that novel.
As this was a conversation, rather than a Meeting, I then mentioned casually that I had at one time considered doing a second graphic novel, and IF I HAD (WHICH I BLOODY DIDN’T AND I’M NOT GOING TO**), it might have included something about Master Raymond and what—if anything—he might have done following his visit to save Claire’s life at the hospital.
OK. This is the way I work; I don’t sit down and type out a detailed timeline of things I might write over the next ten years. I don’t work with an outline, and I don’t write in a straight line. I get ideas, and some of them come with words, and if they do, I write them down. If they don’t, but seem interesting in some way, I just remember them—sometimes (as I work on other things, usually), one of those will drift back into my mind, and this time I see a possibility, or a faint relationship with something else.
** I’m not going to write a second graphic novel because a) I have way too many other things that I’d rather write first, and b) the first one was OK, and fun to do, but not very popular—owing in part to ignorance on the part of the audience as to what a graphic novel was (this was a number of years ago, and my readership is largely a lot older than the normal readers of graphic novels). We had a lot of people who bought it and were Displeased to find that it was “a comic book!!” (This, in spite of my insisting that the Amazon listing include page shots…) Even more of them were Very Displeased that the artist had somehow failed to read their minds and draw their perceived version of Jamie or Claire. However…
One of the things I liked about writing a graphic novel was that it gave me the opportunity to tell parts of the story that the book didn’t. See, one of the benefits of a visual medium (being comic books, TV or video games) is that you can have multiple points-of-view operating at once. You can’t (normally) do that in regular text. (You can do it sequentially, of course, but that’s not the same effect.)
So THE EXILE isn’t told solely from Claire’s point of view; it includes POV’s from Jamie, Murtagh, Dougal, Geillis, etc. Consequently, there are bits of the story that aren’t in OUTLANDER at all, or that explore what Someone Other Than Claire was doing at the time.
That was interesting, and that’s what caused me to think about Master Raymond. As noted above, I do intend to write a book ABOUT HIM If you follow my Facebook page, you will have seen a few bits of it (my little meditation on Halloween— “In the cold time, when the spiders die… Sometimes I think I see it, too.”— is from that book.) There’s a little more, below…
Anyway, as I said, that book isn’t on top of my mental pile, but ideas still show up, and I tuck them away in some mental crevice, from which they peek out now and then, like curious moray eels… And one of those was my thought as to whether Master Raymond might have intervened in some way that we didn’t see, after the nuns ejected him. I have not written a word about this, and quite possibly never will.
OK. You aren’t going to see any of those thoughts in Book Ten, because they don’t belong there. If you ever do see them (and they aren’t even developed thoughts; just what I call kernels), they’ll be in Master Raymond’s own story (should I live that long…).
But the bottom line here is that No, Faith isn’t/wasn’t alive in the Outlander novels, she’s not going to be, and neither Claire nor Jamie will ever think so. William will not ever have Moral Qualms over having unknowingly had sex with his half-niece (though it’s interesting to see how many people think that possibility is Just Horrifying… I mean, really; what’s more wrong about having sex with a prostitute who’s related to you than one who isn’t, as long as no children result?).
Repeat after me: The books are the books, and the show is the show…
OK, the Master Raymond excerpt is on another computer, so I’m going to stop here; will put that up later. But I hope this settles at least some of the dust surrounding that gentleman…
Selected Comments From My Official Facebook Page:
Gwen Eyster commented:
As a long time book reader, I love the occasional shock of the show when I have either forgotten something or a change has been made. Agreed on thinking this must be the most *exhausting* aspect of a career, when you’ve made as much of an impact as you have. I belong to a few Outlander groups and find them amusing most of the time. It’s funny to me how UP IN ARMS people get.
Thank you for always explaining what you do for our understanding, Busy Woman.
I (Diana Gabaldon) replied:
I was born with a strong “teacher” gene. <wry g> If people ask me a question, I do my best to answer it.
Amy Vater Haas commented:
Thank you for taking the time to even answer this person.
Judith Lucas Teaster commented:
Whew! I never realized what you have to go through trying to explain things to readers. I agree, the books are the books and the show is the show. I enjoy both (but prefer books). It’s all fiction, an escape from our lives and I love them all!
I (Diana Gabaldon) replied to Judith:
I don’t actually have to explain things to the readers <g>, but I was born with an ineradicable “teacher” gene. I can’t help telling people things if I know them.
Theresa Bishop Williams commented:
Just wow!! I’m so dizzy reading this and I cannot even imagine your brain!! I’m currently re-reading “The Space Between” thinking I remembered reading that Master Raymond was looking for a lost girl thinking perhaps it could be Faith but you’ve laid that possibility to rest with this post. I so enjoy the novellas and am looking forward to reading book 10, “Blood of My Blood” and Master Raymond’s book should either of us live that long… you’re one month older than me.
I (Diana Gabaldon) replied to Theresa:
That’s from a novella I wrote, called “The Space Between” (It was originally written for an S/SF anthology, but is also presently available in the book SEVEN STONES TO STAND OR FALL, or as a stand-alone ebook, both on Amazon.
Jo Anne Mitchell commented:
I was curious about that little tidbit in the show regarding Faith. Just thought the show was wanting a little more dramatic effect. And yes, the book is the book and the show is the show. Truly I much prefer the books. But the show is entertaining.
I (Diana Gabaldon) replied to Jo Anne:
Well, yeah, they definitely do stuff just for a momentary thrill. <wry g> Sometimes it works better than others…
Marti Sawyer commented:
I’d say, “I love you,” but that would be weird, right? You are an amazing and remarkable writer and human being.
I (Diana Gabaldon) replied to Marti:
That’s always a kind and lovely thing to say to someone. <smile> Thank you!
Kathy Aderhold commented:
You’ve said it before that things in the show aren’t always necessarily how you wrote the book. I love your books and have read them all at least 3 (maybe 4) times. But shows rarely follow the books exactly. I think it will be fun to explore how they work out this Faith angle on the show. And I do not think it sacrilege that “that wasn’t in the book.” I hope people can get over that.
I (Diana Gabaldon) replied to Kathy:
There’s a LOT of stuff in the show that isn’t in the books. <g> And vice-versa!
Robin Schachter commented:
As always, spot on. I am tickled that I have had the pleasure to meet and hear you speak a number of times, and can so clearly hear your voice in this Facebook post, <coughs> and all. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the current kerfuffle. Never a dull moment with us lot! Wishing you long stretches of less hectic writing time this year.
I (Diana Gabaldon) replied to Robin:
People often say that to me. (That they can “hear” me when reading something I wrote.) I never know whether this is a compliment or not, but tend to assume the best, in the interests of a peaceful mind…
Ava Reyna commented:
But if anything you are okay with what Starz has chosen to do? I love the books and even not watched the show but have been told to do it so I probably will watch it one day.
I (Diana Gabaldon) replied to Ava:
Well, I appreciate the immense thought and effort that goes into the show, always. Most of the time, I also like (and frequently love) the results. Now and then… not so much, but that really describes life as a whole, doesn’t it?
Nikita Carelle commented:
Exactly. It was too cruel to let William be with his niece and to let Jaime and Claire be this long without their child and furthermore have their grandchildren grow up in a brothel. It’s just terrible and absolutely cruel to create that world for them. I couldn’t see you writing that at all.
I (Diana Gabaldon) replied to Nikita:
Nope, definitely didn’t.
Lottie Gilpin Guhle commented:
The upheaval on the fan pages is quite remarkable. Some of the various theories are quite out there. I suspect the cliffhanger will be resolved without much ado in season 8. I’m glad we have your stories and the tv writers, while likely well paid, are just not as talented or creative. They’re skills are to keep is guessing and talking, which they do quite well. This season’s finale is much like the dramatic trailers that show Jamie or Claire dying or dead. I try to appreciate the show for being a tv show and understand why they make the choices they do. And I’m so thankful to have the actors and their personas that I envision while reading (rereading multiple times) the books.
I (Diana Gabaldon) replied to Lottie:
Well, writing for TV is a different skill set than writing novels (I’ve done both, so I know <g>).
Beatriz Castaneda commented:
It amazes me how many people don’t understand the books and the books and the show is the show. If you are someone who needs the show to follow the books exactly then perhaps the show is not for you. Let the show runners do their thing and Diana Gabaldon do hers and life will be more enjoyable.
Mary Undeutsch Downs commented:
This whole post from you Diana is just one more example of your amazingly brilliant ability to craft a narrative. Any of us who have read the books, (Once twice or dang it three times!!) realize there is absolutely no way to translate that into a show. They’ve done a fantastic job-no doubt-but it will never have the depth and breadth and vast research you did that is so incredibly evident in your telling of this story. I have no earthly clue how you managed it. I’m just thankful you did it. (Now I do think Sam Heughan totally nails Jamie-right down to the tapping of a finger or hand when the situation dictates!!)
Thank you so much for this. God bless you. If you’re ever in Louisville, the bourbon is on me!!!
I (Diana Gabaldon) replied to Mary:
Might take you up on that. <g> I usually drink single-malt Scotch (well, when I drink Strong Liquor — normally, I drink mimosas and/or white wine/champagne), but I do like bourbon…
Katie Marie commented:
I admittedly haven’t read Go Tell the Bees. So when I watched the last episode of this most recent season, I was shocked. My flabbers had been gasted. I scoured interviews and articles hoping to find some glimpse into a book I haven’t read without stumbling into any spoilers, but alas, I could not find anything relating what I watched to what I could potentially read. Everyone was as stunned as I was.
But I remembered your phrase, repeated a couple of times in this post: the book is the book, the show is the show. I had to chant it to get it to sink in and stick. I was aware that since season 8 is the last of the television series, producers and writers were BOUND to take creative liberties. I just had to remind myself, that much like Game of Thrones, the book series isn’t finished and changes will be made by the powers that be.
At the end of the day, though, one question sticks out to me most of all, Ms Diana: assuming you’ve watched every episode since the very beginning, how do you prevent these creative liberties and this TV show from directly (or perhaps INDIRECTLY??) effecting your own story line? As you’ve stated before, you don’t have a particular timeline or outline that you follow as you write, so how do you keep them separate??
Yes, yes, the book is the book and the show is the show… but by all means, how are you able to shove aside the “real life” version of Outlander in order for the version in your mind’s eye to play out as you would like??
I (Diana Gabaldon) replied to Katie:
I know my characters. <g> And all the books up through WRITTEN IN MY OWN HEART’S BLOOD were already written when the show began.
Besides that, I’ve worked on set and written a number of scripts for the show myself. I certainly know the difference.
Tina Buckham commented:
Books always lose some of their magic when put to film, they also gain something ( mostly a new audience). Those without the patience or desire to read get introduced to a world and perspective they would have otherwise missed and that is a fine thing. Getting it close is practically impossible. I think the only time I thought it even came close was with The Shawshank Redemption and that was interpreting a rather short story ( and it probably made a difference that I saw the movie first).
Write what you write with the magic you have ( don’t make cows eat daisies though) have the show use the magic it can and don’t get too hung up on people not knowing the difference.
Thank you for sharing your gifts with us … after all that first draft could be collecting dust in a drawer if you hadn’t had a certain amount of guts and luck and then what would I read when it’s -12 here? Thank you
I (Diana Gabaldon) replied to Tina:
Must cows not eat daisies?
Tina Buckham replied to Diana:
… they really don’t ..
Genny Philip commented:
What happened?
I was just reading your intriguing story on the genesis of Master Raymond when my phone suddenly flipped to this page.
I’ve always wanted to know more about Master Raymond and wondered which century he was from and how old he really is and if he is more than a time traveler.
Sunrise and sunset are magical times indeed and are perfect for the creation of spells and magical changes. I always feel other worldly at these times for they offer more than the change of light.
Im not fond of snakes, but I do hope that the snake has eyelashes. I once held a pet snake in my hands and was surprised to discover that his scales felt like feathers.
I can’t wait for the book to come out
I (Diana Gabaldon) replied to Genny:
Snakes don’t have eyelashes—or even eye-lids—but they do have a special scale over each eye that protects it—that scale is shed, along with the rest of the snake’s skin, which might (possibly) be where the expression, ‘The scales fell from his eyes’ came from?
Heidi Brown commented:
That was all very interesting. But I have to tell you Diana – there are definitely more than 200 people that know that the Battle of Monmouth was held in summer in intense heat! I’d say at least a few thousand! I live about 15 minutes away from there and considering that New Jersey is the most populated state in the country, you can imagine at least a few thousand!
I (Diana Gabaldon) replied:
Well, yes, but I’m assuming all those people aren’t watching the show.
Krista Rucker Carroll commented:
Just curious since you don’t write using an outline, when Outlander was first created, did you know how it would end from that early on? Did you have certain events that would happen in the story written down and then wrote around those events? Not a writer at all (a banker actually, pretty boring stuff Ha) but very curious your thought process when creating.
I (Diana Gabaldon) replied to Krista:
Heck, no. I wrote OUTLANDER for practice, never intending to show it to anyone. But Things Happened <cough>, and I got a very good literary agent, who got three offers for the book, so held a little auction—and the winning publisher said (he later told me) “Trilogies are very popular these days; do you think she could write three??” Being a good agent, he said, “Oh, I’m sure she can,” and I walked away with a three-book contract.
Visit my Writer’s Corner (What I Do) webpage at:
https://dianagabaldon.com/resources/what-i-do/
There you will find links to my blogs and essays about my writing and the publishing process. Including my writing process blog entry from 2016.
Bjarnhei&dacute;ur Jóhannsdóttir replied to Krista and I:
I must say that with my ADHD brain could probably never get my head around sorting the bits, if I created this way, but I find it a very interesting way of writing and I think also it helps the story lines (there are multiple in DG work), become more variable and unpredictable, which is pleasing for the reader.
Also the sensory elements of the texts, describing scents, colors, sounds etc are something I enjoy for the first time in my reading life. Because they support the reader’s connection to the voice/persona in the story, the atmosphere and the flow, rather than just being there for a decorative reason, as they very often are in novels.