Workshops

Every time I begin a new batch of my writing programme, it feels like the weeks fly by! This edition is nearly at an end, marked by our third and last guest session of the season.

This session was conducted by Arundhati Venkatesh, author of a number of humorous books. My book clubbers have read several – Bookasura (which we’re reading again in December 2024), Koobandhee, Petu Pumpkin: Freedom Fighter, Petu Pumpkin: Tiffin Thief and Petu Pumpkin: Cheater Peter. 

Step by step, Arundhati led us through the writing of a humorous story. To begin with, if you want to write humour, you must enjoy reading funny stuff. This is something I say often—if you don’t read, you cannot write. I don’t restrict my definition of reading to fiction, though. We consume content in all kinds of ways, including memes and blog posts!

Secondly, the core of humour is truth, something that I completely agree with. An important idea that I’m glad Arundhati stressed is that the target of a humorous story should always be the person in power rather than someone who has no power or is helpless. The joke must be on the people who have authority. To paraphrase Terry Pratchett, when you make fun of people in power, that is satire. When you make fun of people without power, that’s bullying!

Having said that, Arundhati also came back to the idea that you can write about anything at all through the lens of humour. Her books are a great example – she has written humorous books about science, mathematics and the constitution!

Arundhati shared a handy list of ideas to get going with our own humorous stories. I hope at least some of the participants put her ideas into practice and write a story!

At the Neev Literature Festival 2023, I watched Menaka Raman conduct a session on character development, and I knew I wanted to invite her to my writing programme. She did a session for us today, and what an engaging session it was! Her lively teaching style made the workshop a treat. 

This workshop was my twenty-sixth guest session, and my very first one on podcasting. Menaka took us through the basics—from what a podcast is to what equipment we need to record a podcast.

In some ways, a podcast is like Netflix for audio – it has episodes that are recorded and that you can listen to in your own time. That’s what makes it different from radio, which you have to catch only when it is broadcast!

Through a series of writing exercises, Menaka helped us experience firsthand the process of podcast creation. Asking the right questions, choosing a theme, taking our time editing—all of it is important.

Finally, Menaka reminded us that we don’t need any fancy equipment to create a podcast. Recording on a phone is easy enough, and to edit, we can use Spotify, Audacity, iMovie and Garage Band. Special effects add to the experience of podcasts, and BBC, for instance, has 33,000 sound effects that you can use for free.

It was a rewarding session, and as often happens, I think I learned as much as the children did!

What an enriching session we had on illustrating picture books with Ashok Rajagopalan!

“I didn’t know this, but I make an angry face when I’m drawing an angry face!” Ashok said. “If I want to draw a sad face, I make a sad face myself.” I remember seeing something about Disney doing the same thing. Is it something all artists do?

Today’s focus was creating emotions in picture books. Among the most interesting things for me was the fact that the reader’s emotion can be quite different from what the character is feeling. Sometimes, a character is angry, or confused, but the reader laughs. This laughter is deliberate, and the illustrator must portray the character’s emotion in such a way that the reader feels compelled to laugh.

Using a series of drawing exercises, we worked on drawing emotion and then heightening these emotions, first through the face itself and then through body language, colours and setting. As with every art workshop I’ve organised, I’m amazed at how easily and quickly illustrators draw! Look at the top right illustration in the image above for instance. Isn’t it incredible? It was done in less than a minute!

What an informative session we had with Anupama Dalmia!

Anupama began by discussing what blogging is. From there, we went on to so much more – blog formats (including vlogs and micro-blogs), finding your niche, and starting your own free blog. She then introduced the children to SEO and the backend, showing them how easy it is to start the process of blogging.

Importantly, she answered the question of why blogging could be a good idea – to build a discipline around writing. Once we start blogging, there is often a sense of accountability, the idea that writing and posting content is something that we need to do regularly and systematically. Where do we begin? How do we get noticed? What can we do to increase the reach of our blog posts? Anupama discussed all this and more in a single hour!

When guest speakers repeat something I keep saying in class, I’m always happy. For instance, I often ask children what the purpose of their piece is. What do they want the reader to feel? What are they trying to do with their writing? Anupama phrased it as WIIFM – what’s in it for me? As the audience, this is the question we ask. Why should I read your blog? It’s important to be able to answer that!

With this workshop on blogging (guest session #24!), we’re now drawing to the end of another writing programme. In October, the twentieth batch of my online writing programme will begin!

Practice. What a difference practice makes! Right through yesterday’s guest session on character design, I marvelled at how swiftly Priyankar Gupta created his characters. Talking all the time, explaining what he was doing, he was able to draw not one, but six full forms in fifteen minutes!

Characters, both human and non-human, are led by three parts of the body – the chest, the nose and the pelvis.
An inquisitive person tends to hunch. The whole body structure is led by the nose. 
A confident person is led by the chest. This is why people in the army, or even dancers, tend to have accentuated chests. 
All of us also have an aspect of us that is lazy, one that likes to sit and watch the world go by. This sort of character is led by the pelvis.

Once Priyankar had shared a few sample drawings, he asked us to draw characters of our own. Soon, the children shared sketches of chickens and grandmothers, pencils and teachers. And as the participants shared their work, we discussed the breaking of archetypes in subtle and not so subtle ways.

Priyankar ended the session with a quote from Neil Gaiman – make good art. No matter how you feel, draw. If you’re happy, angry, bored, annoyed … draw. For someone who’s barely drawn anything for years, it was an important reminder.

Draw. That’s it.