‘Outlander’ Author Diana Gabaldon Reveals How She Really Feels When The Show Makes Changes From Her Books
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
- ‘Outlander’ the TV show has taken some liberties with Diana Gabaldon’s hit book series
- Gabaldon recently revealed how she really feels about the changes
- Plus, she updated her fans on the 10th book in the ‘Outlander’ series
Outlander author Diana Gabaldon will soon be releasing the ninth book in her popular series. After a seven-year wait for fans, Go Tell The Bees That I Am Gone will finally hit bookstores in November. And that will give the Starz series even more source material heading into future seasons.
However, there’s no guarantee that the Outlander TV series will stay true to the new book. The TV writers have made plenty of changes to the other novels in the first five seasons. But Gabaldon says she understands why they sometimes have to alter her work.
The ‘Outlander’ author reveals how she really feels when the TV show makes changes to her books
During the first five seasons the writers of the Starz TV series made quite a few changes from Gabaldon’s books. For example, Stephen Bonnet’s (Ed Speleers) kidnapping of Brianna Fraser (Sophie Skelton) and his eventual murder happened in Gabaldon’s sixth book. But, they moved that storyline up to season 5.
They also changed the storyline of Murtagh Fitzgibbons (Duncan Lacroix), which should have ended in season 2 at the battle of Culloden. Instead, they kept the character until season 5 and gave him a storyline that another character had in the books.
How does Gabaldon feel about the Outlander TV series writers making changes to her work? The author says she completely understands why they have to do it.
Diana Gabaldon says the writers of the TV series have ‘very limited time’
While speaking to Express, Gabaldon said there are moments from the books that she wishes she would have seen on the TV screen. However, she knows that the TV show has limitations that her novels don’t have.
“Oh yes, there’s always lots of those. But you know, they have very limited time compared to what I have with the books. They can basically use about 10 percent of any given book,” Gabaldon explained.
The ‘Outlander’ author says the TV writers have done ‘a very good job overall’
Gabaldon continued, saying that overall she thinks the writers of the Outlander TV series have done “a very good job” of adapting her books to the TV screen
“I think they’ve done really a very good job overall of picking and choosing what things they can use and you know squeezing in bits and details and small scenes from other parts of the story,” Gabaldon said. “They can accumulate that and keep that even if it’s not quite at the same conjunction that it was in the original.”
More ‘Outlander’ book news
The current Droughtlander for the Outlander TV show has lasted 18 months so far. And it won’t officially end until February 2022, when season 6 premieres. But that’s nothing compared to the current Droughtlander for the book series, which has been an excruciatingly long seven years.
The last book that Gabaldon released was book eight, Written In My Own Heart’s Blood, which came out just eight weeks before the Outlander TV show premiered on Starz in the summer of 2014.
But the news of book nine’s release isn’t the only thing fans of the Outlander novels have to be excited about. Gabaldon has also revealed that she’s officially started writing book 10 — the final entry in the Outlander series that began 30 years ago.
When will Diana Gabaldon’s 10th book be released?
Gabaldon shared the news about book 10 on September 25 in a Facebook post, but not with an official announcement. Instead, the author was posting about all the copies of Go Tell The Bees That I’m Gone that she had to sign. Casually — at the end of her caption — Gabaldon wrote, “Oh — and I started work on Book Ten yesterday.”
Of course, since she just started writing the conclusion to the Outlander series, Gabaldon does not know when it will be finished. Much less when it will be published. But hopefully, it will be done before the TV series catches up to her.
Gabaldon doesn’t have a name for book 10 just yet, but she does when and where the story will end.
“I think the Outlander books will end in about 1800 in Scotland. If this tells you anything, more power to you,” she told The Press and Journal. “The last book will have a happy ending, although I confidently expect it to leave the readers in floods of tears anyway.”
Outlander season 6 premieres on Starz in February 2022. Seasons 1 through 5 are available on the Starz app.
