• “The smartest historical sci-fi adventure-romance story ever written by a science Ph.D. with a background in scripting 'Scrooge McDuck' comics.”—Salon.com
  • A time-hopping, continent-spanning salmagundi of genres.”
    —ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
  • “These books have to be word-of-mouth books because they're too weird to describe to anybody.”
    —Jackie Cantor, Diana's first editor

Tag Archive for ‘Diana Gabaldon How I Write’ rss

How I Write – Part I

Sorry to neglect y’all. I hadn’t much heart to write for a bit, and then was overtaken by the usual fierce rush of events. Haven’t forgotten you, though. [g] I had in fact just been about to answer Midge’s questions about how I write, so figured I might as well resume with that: It’s almost impossible (I know from experience) for me to describe coherently what’s going on my mind when I write–but fwiw, both sides of my brain seem to work at once. No, I don’t plan out the structure–of a sex scene, or any other kind of scene, let alone the book. [wry g] I start with a “kernel”–a line of dialogue, a sense of emotional ambiance, an object whose details I can “see”–anything that I can sense concretely. Then I write a line or two describing that, as best I can. Then I sit and stare at it for awhile. I put words in and I take them out. I divide the sentence in half and insert […]