Outlander Diana Gabaldon speaks onstage during a panel for the STARZ show at NYCC 2019 on October 05, 2019 at Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City

‘Outlander’ Author Diana Gabaldon Details Her Unusual Writing Routine

Diana Gabaldon had been writing the ‘Outlander’ series since the late 1980s when she was a professor at Arizona State University.

by Perry Carpenter

Published on July 20, 2022

3 min read

‘Outlander’ author Diana Gabaldon knew she was supposed to be a novelist

Gabaldon started writing the first Outlander novel in the late 1980s when she was a professor at Arizona State University. After years of writing computer software reviews and technical articles for computer publications, Gabaldon says she started writing Outlander for “practice” because she knew she was supposed to be a novelist.

“I began writing Outlander for practice. I knew I was supposed to be a novelist, but I didn’t know how, and I decided the way to learn was to actually write a novel. So, Outlander was my practice book,” Gabaldon said, per Collider.

“I was never going to show it to anyone, so it didn’t matter what I did with it. It didn’t have to have a genre, so I used anything that I like. And I’ve been reading since I was three years old. I like a lot of stuff, and I used it all.”

Diana Gabaldon has an unusual writing routine

Gabaldon is currently writing the 10th and final book in her Outlander series. Part of her writing process is going back and re-reading the preceding novel because “there are pieces where I encounter an emotional thread that I had dropped in the last book.”

“So, I will go back to read through it and pick that up, so it will come into the new book with its original power,” Gabaldon explained. She also revealed that her unique writing routine doesn’t include linear writing.

“I don’t write in a straight line and I don’t plan stories out ahead of time. I, in fact, don’t actually know what’s going to happen in a book,” she said.

Gabaldon references real historical events in her works of fiction, and that requires a ton of research on her part. She says that before she starts a novel, she will read several “overview” books about the time period she is writing about and the significant events that will be of relevance.

“Doing any kind of research is like grabbing the end of a long piece of yarn and pulling— you don’t know what the other end is attached to, and you may end up in convoluted tangles—but you can be sure there’s something there,” Gabaldon writes on her blog.

The ‘Outlander’ author enjoys writing in the middle of the night

When it comes to Gabaldon’s writing schedule, she says that when she started the Outlander novels she had two full-time jobs and three children under the age of six. This taught her to work in the middle of the night, and that’s something Gabaldon still does.

“So usually I’ll tuck my husband in bed around 9:00 or so, and then the dogs and I lie down on the couch for a bit, and I’ll fall asleep for an hour or two. And then I get up and the dogs get a bone,” Gabaldon explained.

“I get a Diet Coke. We go back to work until 4:00 in the morning. So that’s the main time. I can write at other times of the day, it’s just that’s when people leave me alone.”