Author: Barry Lyga

Last week, I talked about overcomplicating your story. That post resulted in a question about undercomplicating. At the same time, I received an e-mail about something related. So I’m going to tackle both at once....

So, a while back I was asked this question: How do you avoid overcomplicating a story? By that, I mean that there are times when you’re trying to make your story imaginative and/or not derivative, but the result has too...

I get asked a lot about outlining. Some people seem to think that it’s a mysterious, arcane art that must be mastered before one is allowed even to contemplate writing a novel. Others recoil at its mere mention, as though...