The Outlandish Companion by Diana Gabaldon

Author:Diana Gabaldon
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307568045
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 1999-11-23T10:00:00+00:00

Having written the scene in which Claire applies the ointment to Jamie, and in which he makes a nervous joke about having come too close to being one of the ingredients, I began to think (well, actually, I think pretty much all the time when I’m writing, but it helps to have some specific direction).

Hangmen, being hanged, a traitor’s death—which is precisely what Jamie was risking by his actions. Enter Monsieur Forez again, for the purpose of pointing out—to Jamie, Claire, and to the reader— that while politics might be played as a game, it was nonetheless one with possibly fatal consequences. (As to Monsieur Forez’s scholarly lecture on the details of evisceration—well, I had one postdoctoral appointment in which my main job was butchering seabirds. People always ask me whether my previous education and experience as a scientist is useful to me in writing these books. Not often, but it comes in handy every now and then.)

In terms of the overall book, I thought that Monsieur Forez captured nicely the balance between the farcical aspects of the Rising (which were many), and the deadly serious outcome. He’s a minor note in the book, but an important one. And yet, I couldn’t have gone looking for him—I didn’t know he existed.

The reason I don’t take notes on the research I do is that as the story takes shape in my mind, bits and pieces of research material are incorporated into it. Sometimes a piece of research material will trigger a specific scene, or even a subplot; sometimes a particular scene will demand a specific piece of information, which I then go and find. In either case, though, the research information becomes part of the story; and from that point on, it’s in my head; I can’t forget it. On the other hand, I instantly forget anything that’s written down: phone messages, grocery lists, errands…

As for the things that I need to know… well, some of these simply have to be looked up before a given scene can be written. Most small bits of incidental information, though, aren’t really necessary to the shape of a scene or its events. In these cases, when I come to a spot where I need—for instance—to list the herbs that Claire is using for a specific purpose, or the name of a street in Edinburgh, or the height of a mountain—I just put a pair of empty square brackets—“[]”— in the text where that information should go. That way, I can continue writing without breaking my stride, and go look up the necessary bits of information later on.

“I took down my mortar and rubbed a handful off] into it. Adding [] and [], I pounded and ground while thinking what to do next.”

The next-to-last thing I do to a book before printing it off to send to the editor is to go through and look up the necessary information to fill in any of the []’s still remaining. (The last thing I do is to break the text into chapters and title them.

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