Diana Gabaldon, Outlander, and the science of the perfect bestseller

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Thirty-four years ago, Diana Gabaldon decided to try writing a novel.

A first exercise that no one would read and that, according to her

would help her (trial and error) to learn as she went.

That finally was not a personal draft of her, but the first title of a saga,

(

), which today accumulates millions of readers around the world and has given rise to a successful television series.

An unclassifiable narrative world, somewhere between romance and fantasy, with handsome

in

and time travel.

Now, Gabaldon presents in Spain the ninth installment,

(Salamandra), a volume of more than 1,100 pages set in the American war of independence not suitable for the uninitiated, despite the fact that a motley family tree guides the reader in the thick forest of incidents and

back and forth between two centuries.

The ancestry of the writer is almost at the height of her great fictional tableau.

A first Gabaldon arrived in Mexico from Galicia in the 17th century, and his two sons later settled in Santa Fe, today in the United States.

Some feature of Diana, apart from a careful dark hair, make him suspect the existence of some Apache ancestor on the part of her orphan paternal grandmother.

Her parents met in 1950 in

, a small town in Arizona.

"

that's what they called anyone of Hispanic descent back then, and my mother was not only very white, but she was the mayor's daughter."

It was a scandal but love triumphed;

and Tony Gabaldon shook off the weight of prejudice and became a

of the state.

Her daughter, who despite her surname does not speak a word of Spanish, tells us about it in the lobby of her hotel in Madrid, a few hours after the massive presentation of her book, with

“My family was quite conservative, and my parents encouraged me and my sister to study to get as far as possible.

I've wanted to write since I was eight years old, but even at that age I realized I probably wouldn't make much

."

She studied zoology and has a master's degree in behavioral ecology, as well as a degree in literature.

«I liked science, I was good at what I did and I really enjoyed teaching and researching.

But I

And when I turned 35, I thought that maybe the time had come.

Mozart died at 36, so, I said to myself, if you want to write a novel maybe you should get on with it."

Until then, apart from academic articles and some technical book, Gabaldon had written scripts for some Disney comics.

“All

comics are the same, because since he is a good guy there is no conflict.

Those of

were more interesting, because he is not such a good person.

And one of the few things I learned in my literature classes is that every good story needs a conflict.

With this baggage he decided to embark on the self-taught adventure of writing.

"I've been a reader since I was three years old, so I thought that if she managed to give birth to a novel, I would recognize her."

She settled on historical fiction because of her research experience, and because if her imagination failed her she could always fall back on the facts.

The subject of her was introduced to him by watching an old episode of

in which the

Jamie McCrimmon appeared, one of the most remembered characters of the veteran British series.

“It occurred to me that the

against the English would be a good conflict.

I visualized

crouched in a cabin around the fire, and I thought that if I put a woman in, it would also have sexual tension.

Later, unsuccessfully struggling to get that woman to speak like a character from the period, the idea of

time was consolidated ».

Claire Fraser is the heroine of

, “and now that fiction is all about strong female characters, I always get asked about her.

And I always answer that it all started with a man in a kilt, not Claire.

It gives the impression that

when they do manly things;

things that are usually not that difficult, frankly.

Women have always been strong.

What do the

have to produce such

and have an entire romantic subgenre?

"Years ago, a journalist asked me what was attractive about a man in a skirt.

I think because I had had so many interviews that day and I was so tired, I told him that maybe it was the idea that in just a minute you could be making out with him against the wall.

But the truth, jokes aside, is that the whole idea of ​​a

educated to be warriors, devoted to his clan and capable of dying to protect their own is very attractive ».

However, Gabaldon does not believe that the

novels are properly

When the first title appeared, the publisher had difficulty ranking it.

Romance, fantasy?

He ultimately settled on the former due to its higher sales potential.

It was, in fact, the first hardcover romance novel.

"All genres have good and bad books, but the romance novel has traditionally attracted a lot of negative attention because there is so much

.

But it is one of the oldest forms of literature, and if it continues to exist it is because people are still interested in what makes us fall in love, live together and have a family.

However, a romantic novel has a very rigid structure, with a happy ending in which the protagonists end up together, in bed or at the altar.

And I always like to write new things.

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