Three of the principal cast members of 'Outlander' have come out publically for 'Yes': Sam Heughan, Graham MacTavish and Grant O'Rourke. And the 'Yes' proponents are on fire: idealistic, hopeful, inspired by the idea of change and of democratic self-determination.
Actors act... Their job is to become this character. And I have, in fact, seen Sam Heughan become Jamie and Caitriona Balfe become Claire right before my eyes. It was an astonishing transformation.
A romance is a courtship story. In the 19th century, the definition of the romance genre was an escape from daily life that included adventure and love and battle. But in the 20th century, that term changed, and now it's deemed only a love story, specifically a courtship story.
There are lines of geomagnetic force running through the Earth's crust, and most of the time, these run in opposing directions - forward and backward. In some places, they deviate and will cross each other, and when that happens, you kind of get a geomagnetic mess going in all different directions. I call these vertices.
All of my books have an internal geometric shape, and once I've seen the shape, then the writing gets much faster and easier because I now do know where we're going, and I know what's motivating these people, why they were here, and therefore, I have some good idea how they got there, and so I can fill in the missing chunks somewhat more easily.
Cultural concepts are one of the most fascinating things about historical fiction. There's always a temptation, I think, among some historical writers to shade things toward the modern point of view. You know, they won't show someone doing something that would have been perfectly normal for the time but that is considered reprehensible today.
Cultural concepts are one of the most fascinating things about historical fiction.
When I turned 35, I thought, 'Mozart was dead at 36, so I set the bar: I'm going to start writing a book on my next birthday.' I thought historical fiction would be easiest because I was a university professor and know my way around a library, and it seemed easier to look things up than make them up.
If you're writing something that's clearly labelled as an alternative history, of course it's perfectly legitimate to play with known historical characters and events, but less so when you're writing an essentially straight historical fiction.
When' Voyager', the third book of the series, hit the 'New York Times' bestseller list, they very honorably redesigned the covers and started calling them fiction.
I discovered that, given the indescribable nature of what I write, the only way to sell it is to give people free samples.
Orkney has the kind of landscape that sort of lends itself to a relationship with the people. I think that relationship is intensified because of its remoteness and the long periods of time when there was no interaction with other cultures.
I particularly like the bookshops at National Parks and battlefields; they often have very unusual and helpful things.
It's important to remember that the Jacobite Risings of the 18th century constituted a religious civil war, not a nationalistic movement.
It's worth noting that at the time of the American Revolution, no sane person would have given two cents for its success.
At one point, some years ago, a nice gentleman had it in mind to do 'Outlander' the musical. His idea was to start with a CD of what you call a song cycle, with a dozen high points of the projected show. It turned out very well, though we had to stop doing it when the TV show came along.
At one point, some years ago, a nice gentleman had it in mind to do 'Outlander The Musical.'
People have been trying to make a two-hour feature film of 'Outlander' for years and years and years.
While you certainly will recognize 'Outlander' if you've been reading the books, there's also this wonderful sense of novelty and discovery about it because of all the little new touches and twists. I watch it in utter fascination waiting to see what will happen.
I was writing 'Outlander' for practise and didn't want anyone to know I was doing it. So I couldn't very well announce to my husband that I was quitting my job and abandoning him with three small children to visit Scotland to do research for a novel that I hadn't told him I was writing.