Of myths, fables and modern dystopian folklore!

It’s always refreshing to teach a fresh batch of kids who are as enthusiastic as their favourite fantasy characters. This might be my 10th fantasy workshop this year but I learn so much from every new class. This time we introduced Magic Realismo, Dystopian Fiction, Young Adult Fantasy and World Mythology focussing primarily on Greek, Norse and Celtic fables. Besides the usual topics like World Creation, Character roundup and Superhero Tops we engaged the students with fun trivia games that talked about modern and classical fantasy. Students also got to watch fantasy short films to fully comprehend ‘The Heros Journey’. Moving to the next level for sure.

Fantasy Furore yet again!

A weekend workshop on Fantasy and Speculative fiction where children came up with intergalactic encounters, space zombies and porcelain kingdoms. All in all, another fun and imaginative workshop at the creatively charged Atta Galata.

Our Winter Story Creators workshop created a mini stir at the American Embassy School where children aged 7-10 participated in 7 different sessions of story creation ranging from ‘Prop Master’, ‘Diving Board’ and ‘Superhero Corner’. All in all, the participants enjoyed using props and objects to make their stories more colourful.

A memorable day at Mount Carmel College Bangalore, where the students participated in an engaging Fantasy and Creative Writing Workshop. Students displayed great response while participating in the ‘Fantasy Locket’ , ‘Imagination Lab ‘ and ‘The Hero’s Journey’. The session ended with a book reading of ‘Bitchweed’ followed by an interesting Q and A revolving around young Adult Literature.

In this particular Fantasy Writing workshop we got incredible response from the participants who undoubted displayed and shared their most outrageous and fantastical ideas with us.  After talking in length about “World creation” and “creature creation’ the participants discussed “Dystopian Speculative Fiction” and discussed movies like “Divergent” and “Hunger Games”. In the end they came up with brilliant opening paragraphs for their very own fantasy novel.

In this particular edition Chennai residents were introduced to old stalwarts of Fantasy Fiction like Tolkeins  Lord of The Rings and Robert Jordan’s Wheel Of Time Series. The participants were then given a variety of writing exercises that showcased their extraordinary imagination and mind space. Some of the participants were as old as 65 and that was a great sight to behold! Later the author discussed the growing breed of “Fan Fiction ” writers  and how that itself is almost a new genre.  The session ended splendidly with a reading of the authors new book. On the whole, Chennai was a welcome experience and we look forwards to more such collaborations in the future.

Our Screen writing and Story Creators class was a huge with the kids this October! Besides story boarding, scene construction, character moulding, dialogue attribution the kids were exposed to some world class cinema and stories as well. All in all we had a blast with these truly brilliant and talented kids at the American Embassy School in Delhi.

WORKSHOP – DAY 2

The second day of the workshop by ‘Of Heroes and Villians’ focused on Dialogue and Humor Writing.

Ms. Deepali Junjappa gave beneficial tips for avoiding involuntary mistakes while writing dialogues. According to her, by not using adverbs to emphasize the emotion and using some foreign language in our writing can account for a better and authentic piece. Her take on humor writing is inspired by writers from the late 80’s. By presenting our shortcomings in a funny way is the new trend which will soon plague the Indian writing.

Day 1

A workshop on ‘Mystery Writing’ was organized for Quilluminati by ‘Of Heroes and Villians’ today. It focused on incorporating effective and prudent ways to highlight one’s perspective and come up with a piece which would pique the reader’s interest.