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Diana Gabaldon on Her ‘Outlander’ Script-Writing Experience

By Sarah Bredeman

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Most of us have probably heard that author Diana Gabaldon has written a script for the upcoming second season of the Starz adaptation of ‘Outlander’ Diana recently took to her blog to break down the script-writing process. Here is everything we know about the script she’s written!

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Fans of the Outlander TV show found out conclusively during San Diego Comic-Con that Diana wrote a script for the upcoming second season of Outlander. Season Two will air sometime in 2016, although a release date has not yet been announced by Starz.

Before San Diego Comic-Con it was only rumored that she would write a script.

This week on her personal blog, Diana talked about her initial hesitation to write a script, and talked us through the process. She had been asked if she would like to write a script for Season One, and she declined because of her busy schedule leading up to the publication of her eighth Outlander novel, ‘Written In My Own Heart’s Blood.’ When asked again if she would be interested in writing a script for Season Two, she agreed- and we could not be any happier!

She told readers that she was written Episode 11 of Season 2. She also said that there will be only 13 episodes in Season Two, which is three fewer than Season One. She did not say what the episode title will be, or give away any details of what is included in her episode.

In fact, she didn’t give ANYTHING away at all. In her own words:

"“Yes, I know how it ends. No, I’m not going to tell you. It will be fine. Don’t worry.”"

The process of scriptwriting sounds absolutely fascinating. She described the process, saying that first they start by “breaking” the book. Literally they take the book apart and block out all the scenes and write out all the dialogue and put it up on giant white boards in the writer’s room. The writers will try their best to use as much original dialogue as possible, although she did warn you may see and hear things in a different order/ place than in the books.

Of her writing duties, she said most of it was pretty easy. She wrote the outline in three days while also doing other things, then wrote the script after having the outline approved. This process involves Ronald D. Moore (executive producer) and the Starz/ Sony execs, who get a say on the script. The hardest part was the writing software, apparently:

"“Frankly, the most difficult part of it all was the formatting software—FinalDraft 9—and that wasn’t really hard; just a matter of familiarizing myself with it. (Well, that, and its Really Annoying scrolling, which never worked smoothly. Don’t know if it was FD9 or something I was doing, but it would hit the bottom of a page as I was typing, and not scroll up into a blank space so I could continue on the next page. I’d have to fiddle with the cursor control, the PgDn/Up, and the End keys in various combinations every time I needed to change pages or go back and forth to any degree.) I don’t know (yet) how to do fancy things like format the opening title page, but I depend on the kindness of Richard and Mike to explain that one to me."

To read the full blog post, click here.

Needless to say, book lovers will be huddled extra close to the TV when Season Two Episode 11 airs! We’ll keep you posted on anything more we hear about Diana’s script or otherwise!

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