'Outlander' producers talk about making an episode

A new video of “Outlander” has been released online. The video shows the producers/writers Toni Graphia and Matthew B. Roberts explaining the process of making an episode for the show.

Each new season of the TV series is very different. In season 3 the main characters Jamie (Sam Heughan) and Claire (Caitriona Balfe) reached Jamaica. The new video [see below] shows a scene of Claire telling the story of her arrival to Geillis (Lotte Verbeek).

There is a lot of planning involved in developing the season as a whole and each episode. Roberts said in the video that they give a few weeks to the team in the writer’s room to plan the outline of the script. With the outline ready they take another three weeks to write the actual script.

Graphia explained that they break the whole story down in the writer’s room. The script is based on the books written b Diana Gabaldon. The writers talk about using the relevant chapters or chapter for each episode, and Graphia also revealed that sometimes they focus on just one paragraph for an episode. It apparently takes about a month and a half to finish this whole writing process.

Roberts and Graphia have been working together for so long now that they instinctively know what the other person wants for a scene or an episode. The two give each other some lines for different episodes, and Graphia joked that when fans say on Twitter that they like a particular dialogue she has to confess to them that it is from Roberts.

The only rule Graphia and Roberts have is that no matter who comes with something, the best idea wins. The objective has always been about the best story being told on screen. There’s no competition between the two, and they consider themselves to be each other’s advocates.

Credit: Sony/Twitter