My OUTLANDER Purgatory

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Diana Gabaldon: "No Two People Read The Same Book"

“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time." ~John Lydgate

THIS is a FANTASTIC interview with Diana Gabaldon by Alicia Lutes over at Nerdist. Diana talks about her feelings on the Outlander series on Starz, her writing style, and how she feels about fan reaction. I positively LOVE this commentary:

"In terms of popular culture and media and entertainment and so forth, everybody says “Who is the audience for this?” I didn’t really care who the audience was. The audience was me. And since that worked, I’ve always proceeded on that assumption: I don’t care what the audience thinks. Basically, it’s going to be the way I think it should be written. But the other thing is that there is no audience, there is no reader. If you’re going to have more than one person read your book, they’re going to have totally different opinions and responses. No person — no two people — read the same book. It’s always based on their perceptions, their background, their experiences, their expectations of the moment. You know, what side of the bed they got up on that day. I read some books and I thought, “This is better than sliced bread!” and a month later I couldn’t remember thinking about it. And I’ve read others that were kind of a slog and I’ve put them down and come back six months later thinking, “Wow, this is great.” So, you know, things change all the time."

This is exactly how I feel. We're are never all going to agree...and why would we want to? What a boring place the world would be.

This is also what I love about Diana Gabaldon; she gives interviewers and audiences insight into her writing, and what goes on inside her head about this situation or that. When I've seen her speak at various events, I've loved hearing her talk about Outlander, but the info she shares about her writing experiences is what has had me on the edge of my seat. If you've never seen Herself speak live, I highly recommend you do so at the next available opportunity.