An image of a man in a kilt on an episode of Doctor Who was the inspiration for Diana Gabaldon's best selling Outlander books, she says.

The successful time-travelling Outlander novels, which have been translated to the screen in a television show which is currently shooting in Scotland, have ignited many reader's enthusiasm for Scottish history.

However the author of the novels, whose screen adaptation for the Starz network stars Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe in the lead roles of Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall, said it was the "powerful and compelling" vision on Doctor Who which compelled her to write the books, rather than Jacobite history.

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Ms Gabaldon watched The War Games, a classic Doctor Who serial, on PBS, with the character Jamie McCrimmon, a young Scot from 1745, played by actor Frazer Hines.

The author talks about the conception of the novels in a new documentary for the Gaelic channel BBC Alba, Sar-sgeoil: Outlander, which airs this Thursday, September 29.

Ms Gabaldon, who was a professor of environmental science before she wrote Outlander, tells presenter Cathy MacDonald that before the Doctor Who show viewing, she had no prior knowledge of Scotland or its history.

She said: “I didn’t expect that anyone would read this novel, let alone publish it. I didn’t know anything about Scotland but the image of the men in kilts stayed in my head.

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"I then wanted to have a strong female character to create a sexual tension and I decided to have an English woman to create conflict.

"Then as I started writing the character of Claire Randall she just wouldn’t speak like an 18th century Englishwoman at all. "She was speaking in a modern tone of voice and after wrestling with her for a few pages I hit upon the idea of having her travel back in time.”

Ms MacDonald visits some of the Scottish locations which inspired the novels, including Culloden of which Gabaldon says: “I’ve walked on a lot of battlefields. Most of them are not haunted. That one is.”

Ms Gabaldon explains how writing Outlander was her first foray into novel writing and she had no intention of showing it to anyone.

The series of books has gone on to sell more than 27m copies worldwide.

Ms Gabaldon goes on to say she has developed a close connection to the people and places she writes about, particularly Scotland.

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The third series of Outlander is currently filming and last week scenes were being shot in the west end of Glasgow.

The Outlander production is based in studios in Cumbernauld.