The women who come to Herstory range from those who hope to get published to those who wish to write for their children or grandchildren to those who are writing for their own understanding or healing.
Some have written all of their lives. Some have never written before. We begin by helping each woman imagine where she would like to be met by a stranger who will encounter a bit of her life. Will it be a hard place? A painful place? A joyful place? As the photographer frames a picture, we deal intensively with deciding how much of each participant's life to take in and then, from there, we continue to work on a viable way to weave the parts together. For each woman, the structural choice will be different.
The Herstory groups remain small enough so that each woman gets a chance to read every week, so that we may help her story remain true to what she wants to explore. Beginners work alongside those who have already completed manuscripts in first draft, each person's way of structuring her own story fertilizing the other's. We work a great deal with voice and rhythm, enjoying the diversity of backgrounds that our women bring.
Whether a woman is just beginning or is already re-writing, we work intensively with scene development. As we do so, and as the writer develops each scene so that the reader can truly enter it, often lost memories come back, and often an unexpected healing is achieved.
See Also: » Our Manual
» Erika Duncan’s Articles
» Herstory’s Vocabulary
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