Harlowe Savage's Suggested Reading Guide
Harlowe's favorite non-fiction books related to LGBTQIA+ issues, the craft of writing, and more!
LGBTQIA+ Non-Fiction
A Short History of Queer Women
Kristy Loehr
Queer women have always existed – let’s put them back in the history books.
No, they weren’t ‘just friends’!
Queer women have been written out of history since, well, forever. ‘But historians famously care about women!’, said no one.
From Anne Bonny and Mary Read who sailed the seas together disguised as pirates, to US football captain Megan Rapinoe declaring ‘You can’t win a championship without gays on your team’, via countless literary salons and tuxedos, A Short History of Queer Women sets the record straight on women who have loved other women through the ages. Who says lesbians can’t be funny?
The Ethical Slut
Janet W. Hardy and Dossie Easton
The classic guide to love, sex, and intimacy beyond the limits of conventional monogamy has been fully updated to reflect today’s modern attitudes and the latest information on nontraditional relationships.
For 20 years The Ethical Slut—widely known as the “Poly Bible”—has dispelled myths and showed curious readers how to maintain a successful polyamorous lifestyle through open communication, emotional honesty, and safer sex practices. The third edition of this timeless guide to the ethics of relationships, communication, and sex has been revised to include new content addressing nontraditional relationships beyond the polyamorous paradigm of “more than two”: couples who don't live together, couples who don't have sex with each other, nonparallel arrangements, couples with widely divergent sex styles, power disparities, and cross-orientation relationships, while utilizing nonbinary gender language and new terms that have come into common usage since the last edition.
Writing Craft Non-Fiction
The Universal Fantasy List Romance
T. Taylor
The Universal Fantasy™ List: Romance is a highly requested companion guide to the hugely popular writing resource, 7 Figure Fiction: How to Use Universal Fantasy to SELL Your Books to ANYONE.
This valuable writing tool will help romance writers—and those who love to work with romantic story elements—“butter up” their storytelling by breaking down the Patron Saints (and a few little saints) of Romance and defining what makes them so incredibly delicious.
This list is perfect for commercial writers who wish to craft gripping, irresistible stories that truly entertain a wide audience—even if you’re writing in a niche genre.
Level up storytelling today with 7 Figure Fiction: How to Use Universal Fantasy™ to SELL Your Books to ANYONE and this companion guide, The Universal Fantasy™ List: Romance.
7 Figure Fiction
T. Taylor
There are only, in my humble opinion, two kinds of readers. Readers who love your books. and… Readers who don’t know they love your books yet.
But how do you reach those readers in the second category, no matter what kind of writer you are? The answer to that question is… Universal Fantasy
Universal Fantasy is why my sales tripled when I “accidentally” wrote three books that landed in the Amazon Top 100.
Universal Fantasy is why some authors get gobs of gushing reviews and some authors who write “way better” get crickets.
Universal Fantasy is the answer to many of the questions you might have thought were unanswerable or simply up to luck, like…
• Will this sell?
• Why is that selling?
• Why didn’t this sell?
• Will readers like what I am writing?
• Why do I love the TV shows/books/entertainments I do?
• Why did I buy that thing I bought when I didn’t intend to buy it?
BE WARNED…once known, Universal Fantasy cannot be undiscovered. Leave this book be if you’re truly satisfied with your current writing life.
But if you’re not afraid—if you’re ready to know the secret hidden inside all bestselling stories, open this gift and find out how to use UNIVERSAL FANTASY to write and market books that SELL to ANYONE.
Master Lists for Writers
Bryn Donovan
Write faster...write more!Master Lists for Writers makes “show, don’t tell” a lot easier and helps you figure out your story more quickly.
In this book, you’ll find:
• lists of phrases for describing facial expressions, body language, gestures, physical appearance, and emotions
• 175 master plot ideas, including romance, high-stakes, family, and workplace stories• lists of words for writing action scenes and love scenes • inspiration for figuring out character traits and quirks, backstories, occupations, motivations, and goals
• lists for describing settings and writing dialogue• lists of good character names for contemporary stories...plus medieval England, Regency England, Wild West, and WWII settings
• and more!
Whether you’re writing novels or short fiction, screenwriting, or any other kind of storytelling, Master Lists for Writers is a rich source of inspiration you’ll turn to again and again.This book contains adult language.
The Emotion Thesaurus
Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi
One of the biggest struggles for writers is how to convey emotion to readers in a unique and compelling way. When showing our characters’ feelings, we often use the first idea that comes to mind, and they end up smiling, nodding, and frowning too much.
If you need inspiration for creating characters’ emotional responses that are personalized and evocative, this ultimate show-don’t-tell guide for emotion can help. It includes:
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Body language cues, thoughts, and visceral responses for 130 emotions that cover a range of intensity from mild to severe, providing innumerable options for individualizing a character’s reactions
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A breakdown of the biggest emotion-related writing problems and how to overcome them
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Advice on what should be done beforedrafting to make sure your characters’ emotions will be realistic and consistent
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Instruction for how to show hidden feelings and emotional subtext through dialogue and nonverbal cues
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And much more!
The Emotion Thesaurus, in its easy-to-navigate list format, will inspire you to create stronger, fresher character expressions and engage readers from your first page to your last.
The Fantasy Fiction Formula
Deborah Chester
There’s more to writing a successful fantasy story than building a unique world or inventing a new type of magic. From the writing of strong, action-packed scenes to the creation of dynamic, multi-dimensional characters, fantasy author Deborah Chester guides novices and intermediate writers through a step-by-step process of story construction. Whether offering tips on how to test a plot premise or survive what she calls the dark dismal middle, Chester shares the techniques she uses in writing her own novels. Examples drawn from both traditional and urban fantasy illustrate her nuts-and-bolts approach to elemental story design.
With a foreword by New York Times best-selling author Jim Butcher, who studied writing in Chester’s classes at the University of Oklahoma, The fantasy fiction formula delivers a practical, proven approach to writing fantasy like a pro.
