Diana Gabaldon

"I was just looking for a time and place in which to set a historical novel because I wanted to practise writing one. I wasn’t going to show it to anyone, let alone get it published, so it didn’t really matter where I set it. I saw this young man in a kilt and thought that was quite fetching, so why not Scotland in the 18th century?"

"First, a good sex scene is about the exchange of emotions, not body fluids. In other words, what’s going on physically is not really important. It’s what’s going on emotionally that’s important. You use the physical attributes or setting, only as a means of anchoring the reader in the moment, but it’s about what’s going on between these two people. And that leads to the second principle, which is that a good sex scene can only happen between two unique and specific people…"

"I was a university professor and all of my degrees were in the biological sciences, so I did know my way around a library. That’s why I decided on historical fiction. It seems easier to look things up than to make them up. If it turned out I had no imagination, I could steal things from the historical record!"

"When I decided to write a novel, I had two full time jobs and three children under the age of six, so I don’t want anyone telling me they don’t have time to write a book, but I learned to work in the middle of the night, and I still do that…"