Diana Wallis Taylor

Book Signings August 20th

From 1-3 pm:
Lifeway Christian Store
Brea Union Plaza
2535 East Imperial Hwy
Brea CA 92821,

From 4-6 pm:
Tustin Lifway Christian Store
The Market Place
2902 El Camino Real
Tustin, CA 92782

Looking forward to meeting some of my readers!

Online Interview

Mary Harwell Saylor was kind enough to do an online interview of me. Hope you’ll check out her page.

New Books

My 2nd book, MARTHA is now available and has come out to excellent reviews.  Davis Bunn mentioned it on his website to give me a helping hand. He’s a wonderful author and I appreciate his kindness. I am also doing a fourth book for Revell on the wife of Pontius Pilate.  A challenge!  My 3rd book, MARY, WOMAN OF MAGDALA, is in process with Revell and will come out in June of  2012.  I hope my readers enjoy MARTHA as much as they seemed to enjoy JOURNEY TO THE WELL.

Martha: A Novel – excerpt

Chapter One

Martha watched her father walk slowly up the road as the afternoon shadows appeared, and he was smiling.  Ephraim looked tired but pleased. At his raised hand of greeting she hurried to meet him.  Bursting with curiosity, she nearly danced beside him as they returned to the house. A dozen questions whirled in her head but she knew her father would tell her in his own time. Read more…

New Book – Martha: A Novel

My newest book, Martha: A Novel, will be released June 2011 by Revel. My third book of my series on misunderstood women of the Bible, Mary, Woman of Magdala, will be out in June, 2012.

Read more about my new book.

Online Interview

My friend and fellow author, Martha Pope Gorris, has posted a recent online interview of me for her blog Writing with Faith.  The interview centered around themes of healing in fiction writing.  You can read the interview here.

New Awards

I’m very excited to learn that my book, Smoke Before the Wind took the gold, 1st place, in the Reader’s Favorite Book Review and Award contest in the Christian  Romance division.  Also, my manuscript (unpublished yet) for House of the Forest, took gold in the Christian Fiction division.  I’ll go to Las Vegas November 6th for the awards banquet.  My thanks to the Lord for His inspiration and blessing.

Dialogue #4

It’s been a while again, but we’ve been traveling.

Dialogue #4

I skipped over using profanity, but now I’d like to address that subject in dialogue. If you are a Christian fiction writer, at one time or another you will have to face what to do about anger and how it is expressed.  If your character is not a Christian, should he/she be allowed to use swearwords? Do the swear words enhance the bad character?  My answer to that is no, not at any time.

Your writing is a reflection of your character more than your protagonist or villain.  If you claim Christ and your life is changed by your belief in Him, then you cannot take His name in vain.  Some writers resort to “minced oaths” or a derivative of the real words; unfortunately, “Gosh darn” means the same as G– D–m.  I won’t name them all, but go online and look up “minced oaths” to see what you come up with.  You may be surprised!

Sooo, what words do you use?  In contemporary stories, you can say, “He/she swore”; in my Biblical Fiction, I use the words, he swore, or sometimes, he cursed, but the scene needs to be set up to show why he/she cursed. We know what swearing and cursing are and don’t need to spell it out to impress our readers.  They understand.

When you are tempted to throw in a swear word or two, stop and think of how you might be able to show your character’s anger by his/her gestures, stance, actions, and leave out the four-letter words.

Online Interview

Hello friends!  My literary agent, Joyce Hart, shares an online interview of me on her blog From the Heart.  She includes photos of a recent get-together.

Are you on Facebook?  I now have a Facebook page which you can find here: http://www.facebook.com/diana.w.taylor

Dialogue 3

It’s fun to move my characters around in the story, literally.  Are they standing, sitting, crossing the room, leaning back on the couch.  Like many writers, I can get caught up in the words and am tempted to “tell” my reader what the character is doing or thinking instead of “showing”. Too many details stop the reader.  Say Mary needs a snack.  In some manuscripts, they have Mary get up from her chair, cross the room, walk into the kitchen, open the refrigerator, stare at the contents and finally grab an apple. You are weary by the time she finally gets there. We know she has to walk and that she’s going to the kitchen.  Cut out all the movement.  You can just say, “Mary began to feel hungry, and grabbed the last apple in the refrigerator drawer.  The cold, juicy fruit tasted good as she contemplated (whatever is on her mind) ….. as she finished it and tossed the apple core in the trash.

In another instance, Mary is going to the funeral of her dear grandmother. You could say, John came into the room and says, “It’s time to go.”  He brought her coat and held it out for her.  “I just can’t believe she’s gone,” Mary said sadly. She put on the coat and grabbed her purse, making sure she had a clean handkerchief.

What if John enters the room quietly and says. “It’s time.”

A large tear made its way down her carefully applied makeup.  She nodded.

“I’m ready.”

Happy dialoging.