Chapter 7

In Trauma to Writing, MacCurdy makes two arguments: trauma lasts with us and good writing is a sign of healing. First she gives information on studies about how people remember trauma vividly and how that reflects in students writing about it often in personal essay class, instead of analyzes a seemingly mundane detail or routine of life. She backs it up with experts' take on trauma: "traumatic memories can be distinguished from normal ones because 'they are not encoded like the ordinary memories of adults in a verbal, linear narrative that is assimilated into an on-going life story'" (165). Because it is not part of the linear narrative, many people remember trauma in snippets. These snippets provide need to write about them but also a challenge. Many early writers have trouble describing the event itself and instead rely on identifying feeling: "In order to cope with trauma and its aftermath, survivors often bury these images because they can get in the way of daily functioning. In those cases, the narratives of the experiences, when offered, often rely on clichés and the "story of the story," that is, the remembered tale which avoids the depth of feeling that clear images generate" (166). Good writing, and good healing, she argues, is when the writer can pass the "story of the story" and find clarity in delving into the traumatic event.

After reading, I looked to Humans of New York to find posts that explained instead of visualized. The most popular posts visualized. Even if there were some explanation in between, it was the conversational tone squeezed into the vivid story that mostly used descriptive, or cold, language. They seemed to have let it "spill out" like on page 176-177.