‘Outlander’ Author Diana Gabaldon Drops an Excerpt From Her New Book — Even Though She Admits She Is Not ‘Actively’ Writing It
Outlander author Diana Gabaldon is busy writing the 10th and final book in her popular, long-running literary series. At the same time, she has other projects in the works — including a prequel about Jamie Fraser’s parents and a companion book titled What Frank Knew. Recently, Gabaldon dropped an excerpt from the Frank-focused story. But she insisted that she’s not “actively” writing it at the moment.
‘Outlander’ author Diana Gabaldon says ‘What Frank Knew’ doesn’t exist yet
In mid-February, Gabaldon took to Facebook to share a “fragment” of her eventual book titled What Frank Knew. She explained to fans that she wasn’t actually writing the book, but she did write down an idea. She noted that her “copyright” claim to the passage meant that she had written it down and the rights belong to her. However, it doesn’t mean the “eventual book exists yet.”
“Just for fun….I’m NOT (repeat, not) actively working on this book yet, but when pieces of something bubble up, I write them down. So this is just a fragment of the eventual book, WHAT FRANK KNEW…,” Gabaldon wrote.
Diana Gabaldon drops first excerpt even though she’s not ‘actively’ writing the book
The first excerpt that Gabaldon wrote for What Frank Knew is written in first person from Frank’s perspective. It reads:
“Never put anything in writing.” That’s the first thing the instructor at [ ] said to us. Everyone laughed—including the instructor—as all of us were sitting there, pens in hands poised over our clean new notebooks, ready to scribble down the rudiments of withstanding interrogation.
Heady stuff, that. At the time.
Ironic, in retrospect. I was a historian when the war started. And a historian’s chief job is to write things down. Save things from being forgotten. Rescue things that were forgotten, when possible. See, save, rescue—and most importantly, pass them on. Within a simple but elegant setting of your own perceptions and interpretations. You hope.
Both history and intelligence work give you a unique appreciation for truth; I’ll say that much.
So does being married.”
‘Outlander’ fans love the idea of learning more about Frank Randall
In response to the news of a book focused on Frank’s side of the story, fans were delighted to find out they would get to learn more about the character.
“I have been hoping to learn more about Frank, since I discovered them in 2000. He always seemed to be the forgotten hero. I feel he knew about Jamie and Claire and was part of shaping their story all along,” one fan wrote.
Another added, “I’m not a huge fan of Frank’s but I really want to know all about him. Plus the information he knew. It doesn’t seem like I would want to read a whole book about a character that I don’t like but I do.”
In response to that comment Gabaldon wrote, “You may not actually know whether you like him or not. All you know is what Claire told you…”
As for why Gabaldon is currently writing numerous projects at once, she explained to a fan that this process is just the way her brain works.
“I’ve worked on multiple projects at once since my late twenties…I’d normally have at least four document screens open at once…so I could just shift from one thing to another when something got stuck, rather than sitting there gibbering and beating my head on the keyboard,” she explained.
Outlander Season 7 premieres this summer on Starz.
