Kurt Pankau Dot Com

🐀 Despite All My Rage... My wife has a sticker on her car that reads: "More rights for others doesn't mean fewer rights for you. It's not pie." It's one of those things that is so glaringly obvious that you shouldn't have to say it. And yet... we live in a country where sizeable portion of the population is voting for an "anti-woke" agenda, even if it will hurt them economically and infringe on their own rights--and potentially end democracy in America. How can people vote against their own self-interest like that? Are they that  motivated by racism, sexism, and homophobia? And the answer is no... but also yes... but also no. (But also yes.) The motivation isn't overtly about those things--although let's be very  clear that these people are  being racist, sexist, and homophobic, whether they're willing to acknowledge it or not. But what's actually motivating them is something more sinister, but also more understandable. It's abou...

⚠️ It's Dangerous To Go Alone... The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild  is my favorite installment in one of my all-time favorite video game franchises. It was the killer-app launch title for the Nintendo Switch and was hailed as a return to form for a series that had gone so deep on its own lore that... uh... I think the technical term is "it's head had disappeared up its own asshole." Breath of the Wild  reoriented the gameplay on exploration instead of story progression, and it was such a success that seemingly every other AAA series started putting out imitators. This is how we ended up with an open-world Sonic the Hedgehog  game, which is not a thing that needs to exist in any universe. While it's considered story-light for this series--most of the narrative is told in snippets of flashback--the storytelling is actually one of my favorite things about it. For starters, I am a sucker for being drip-fed parts of a narrative and being forced to fill in the gap...

🧑‍⚖️ It's a Little Bit Me, It's a Little Bit You... This last weekend was the 47th  Archon , the local speculative fiction convention here in St. Louis. I started attending as a panelist right after things opened up post-COVID. Needless to say, overall attendance was down and they were in pretty dire need of speakers, so I fast-tracked my way onto the "Pro" tier. I've gone every year since, and I've developed a bit of a reputation as a fantastic moderator. To wit, five minutes into my first Saturday panel. I'd just wrapped up my opening spiel and was about to start the discussion-proper when the panelist on my right turned to me with what I initially thought was exasperation. "Oh my god," she said, "can I bring you to all of my panels to moderate?" This panelist just happened to be the Toastmistress of the con. As Toastmistress, her schedule was stacked, so I can see her being extra appreciative. A badly-managed panel is exhausting to ...

👑 Kings and Queens and Guillotines... Hey everybody! Next weekend, October 4th - 6th, I will be attending Archon 47 at the Gateway Convention Center in Collinsville, Illinois. I'll be on some writing craft panels and also putting on a concert as my alter ego, Uncle Fluffy. So if you're going to be in attendance as well, here's where you can find me: Short Stories: Big Ideas in a Small Package 4 Oct 2024, Friday 13:00 - 14:00, Salon 2 Not everything has to be grand, epic multi-book endeavors! Sometimes your idea fits best as a short story. Discuss the elements of a great short story, and how to approach them if you’re not used to thinking on a smaller scale. Surprise! You are the Panelist! 4 Oct 2024, Friday 14:00 - 15:00, Illini A A Moderator is selected but 2 to 3 other panelists are selected from the audience randomly. A subject (chosen by the Moderator) to talk about is handed to the surprise panelists to discuss. I've Got Ideas - Now What? (moderating) 4 Oct 2024,...

🎱 Thick Smoke, See Her Smilin' Through... We've all heard the adage: "Show, don't tell." It is, if we're being completely honest with ourselves, a bit over-deployed. It's mainly aimed at the kinds of new writers who think describing events is the same as telling a story, but once you reach a certain level of craft proficiency, you realize that showing versus telling is more about the trade-off. To show something is more engaging, but to tell is more expedient. Sometimes you "tell" in order to preserve pacing. Sometimes you "show" because you can make it into an amusing bit. But sometimes it's best to just do neither... Don't Show, Don't Tell, Cue So why is showing-versus-telling even a thing? The reason has to do with something I talked about in the last post: backstory. Backstory, for the uninitiated, is the necessary context for your story that isn't actually a part of the main plot. This can be everything from world-...

🤐 I'll Never Forget About Larry... As I've mentioned a few times, I work with a lot of new writers, and something that happens not-infrequently is that someone has joined the group because they want to write their memoirs. And I'm not one to talk down to someone who wants to develop their craft as a writer. If someone just wants to collect the stories of their life and are planning to self-publish it and only their family is going to read it (but I repeat myself), that's fine . But if you are actually hoping to make some money from your writing, there's something you're going to need to come to grips with... No One Wants to Read Your Goddamn Memoir Before the pedants descend upon me, let me acknowledge that the words "memoir" and "memoirs" mean different things even though most people use them interchangeably. Technically a memoir is an individual story, and a memoirs is a collection of them. I tend to use whichever word feels right in the m...