Diana Gabaldon

Author

1952-01-11

Diana Gabaldon is an American author best known for the Outlander historical fiction series. Her work has been adapted into a long-running television drama.

Quotes by Diana Gabaldon

He reached out a long arm and drew me in, holding me close against him. I put my arms around him and felt the quiver of his muscles, exhausted, and the sheer hard strength still in him, that would hold him up, no matter how tired he might be. We stood quite still for some time, my cheek against his chest and his face against my hair, drawing strength from each other for whatever might come next. Being married.
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Conflict and character are the heart of good fiction, and good mystery has both of those in spades.
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Your mother said that Fraser sent her back to me, knowing that I would protect her--and you. ... And like him, perhaps I send you back, knowing---as he knew of me--that he will protect you with his life. I love you forever, Brianna. I know whose child you truly are. With all my love, Dad.
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But just then, for that fraction of time, it seems as though all things are possible. You can look across the limitations of your own life, and see that they are really nothing. In that moment when time stops, it is as though you know you could undertake any venture, complete it and come back to yourself, to find the world unchanged, and everything just as you left it a moment before. And it's as though knowing that everything is possible, suddenly nothing is necessary.
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Do you really think we'll ever--I do, he said with certainty, not letting me finish. He leaned over and kissed my forehead. I know it, Sassenach, and so do you. You were meant to be a mother, and I surely dinna intend to let anyone else father your children.
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When you hold a child to your breast to nurse, the curve of the little head echoes exactly the curve of the breast it suckles, as though this new person truly mirrors the flesh from which it sprang.
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Babies are soft. Anyone looking at them can see the tender, fragile skin and know it for the rose-leaf softness that invites a finger's touch. But when you live with them and love them, you feel the softness going inward, the round-cheeked flesh wobbly as custard, the boneless splay of the tiny hands. Their joints are melted rubber, and even when you kiss them hard, in the passion of loving their existence, your lips sink down and seem never to find bone. Holding them against you, they melt and mold, as though they might at any moment flow back into your body.But from the very start, there is that small streak of steel within each child. That thing that says I am, and forms the core of personality.In the second year, the bone hardens and the child stands upright, skull wide and solid, a helmet protecting the softness within. And I am grows, too. Looking at them, you can almost see it, sturdy as heartwood, glowing through the translucent flesh.The bones of the face emerge at six, and the soul within is fixed at seven. The process of encapsulation goes on, to reach its peak in the glossy shell of adolescence, when all softness then is hidden under the nacreous layers of the multiple new personalities that teenagers try on to guard themselves.In the next years, the hardening spreads from the center, as one finds and fixes the facets of the soul, until I am is set, delicate and detailed as an insect in amber.
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For my sake,— he said firmly, addressing the air in front of him as though it were a tribunal, "I dinna want ye to bear another child. I wouldna risk your loss, Sassenach," he said, his voice suddenly husky. "Not for a dozen bairns. I've daughters and sons, nieces and nephews, grandchildren" weans enough."He looked at me directly then, and spoke softly."But I've no life but you, Claire."He swallowed audibly, and went on, eyes fixed on mine."I did think, though . . . if ye do want another child . . . perhaps I could still give ye one.
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Jamie's viewpoint is expressed almost entirely in metaphor: If she was broken, she would slash him with her jagged edges, reckless as a drunkard with a shattered bottle. He's using physical language, but he isn't talking about the physical details of the situation. Claire alludes to her emotion and shows it by her actions, but Jamie is thinking directly in pure emotions.
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As a rule of thumb, four consecutive lines of dialogue is about as much as you want to have without a tag.
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Just as an effective advertisement or page layout includes a lot of white space, a powerful scene requires immense restraint. Show things as simply as possible.
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To some extent, emotions are universal and can be treated that way; no matter what the participants' orientation or preference, they have sex for the same reasons and can experience the same array of emotions in the process. But there are three important distinctions to be made: 1. The logistics of physiology 2. The basics of sexual attraction 3. Cultural impact on character and situation
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You don't need to know the purpose as you write, but when you read over something you've written, you should be able to point to any given element— be that a line of dialogue, a descriptive phrase, a plot point— and say why it's there.
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If you can't look a line of dialogue in the face and say exactly why it's there— take it out or change it.
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For a different woman, a different relationship, a different situation, gentleness might have been the proper, the only approach— but not for this woman, in these circumstances. The only thing that will cleanse Claire (and reassure her: look at what she says at the end of it. She feels safe again, having felt the power and violence in him) is violence. And— the most important point here— Jamie pays attention to what she wants, rather than proceeding with his own notion of how it should be, even though it's a sensible notion and the one most people would have.
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Men have external genitalia, while women have internal genitalia. This simple difference makes a lot of difference in how they write about themselves— and how you might write about your characters. Male writers don't often address internal sensation in a character, because they don't experience it (and probably often don't realize consciously that it's there). This accounts for a lot of Really Terrible sex scenes written by men (if you look at the "Bad Sex-Scene Awards" in any given year, you'll see that the vast majority are done by male writers).
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Don't let characters talk pointlessly— they only talk if there's something to say.
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Watch a good movie sometime without reference to what's happening but only with attention to how it was photographed; you'll see the change of focus— zoom in, pan out, close-up on face, fade to black, open from above— easily. You want to do that in what you write; it's one of the things that keep people's eyes on the page, though they're almost never conscious of it.
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One of the general patterns of good (i.e., striking and memorable) writing is the effect of repetition. If you use a certain element— a plot device, an image, a noticeable phrase— once, readers may or may not notice it consciously, but it doesn't disturb the flow of their reading. If you use that element twice, they won't notice it consciously— but they will notice it subconsciously, and it will add to the resonance of the writing or to their sense of depth and involvement (and if it's a plot device, it will heighten the dramatic tension). But if you use that element three times, everybody will notice it the third time you do it.
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Dialogue doesn't take place in a vacuum. Dialogue is contradictory, in that it can either speed up or slow down a passage.
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