BASIC CONCEPTS

— When novelists claim they do not invent it, but hear voices and find stories in their head, they are neither joking nor crazy.

— When characters, narrators, or muses have minds of their own and occasionally take over, they are alternate personalities.

— Alternate personalities and memory gaps, but no significant distress or dysfunction, is a normal version of multiple personality.

— normal Multiple Personality Trait (MPT) (core of Multiple Identity Literary Theory), not clinical Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)

— The normal version of multiple personality is an asset in fiction writing when some alternate personalities are storytellers.

— Multiple personality originates when imaginative children with normal brains have unassuaged trauma as victim or witness.

— Psychiatrists, whose standard mental status exam fails to ask about memory gaps, think they never see multiple personality.

— They need the clue of memory gaps, because alternate personalities don’t acknowledge their presence until their cover is blown.

— In novels, most multiple personality, per se, is unnoticed, unintentional, and reflects the author’s view of ordinary psychology.

— Multiple personality means one person who has more than one identity and memory bank, not psychosis or possession.

— Euphemisms for alternate personalities include parts, pseudonyms, alter egos, doubles, double consciousness, voice or voices.

— Multiple personality trait: 90% of fiction writers; possibly 30% of public.

— Each time you visit, search "name index" or "subject index," choose another name or subject, and search it.

— If you read only recent posts, you miss most of what this site has to offer.

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Sunday, September 14, 2014

Suppose 90% of Novelists and 30% of The Public do, in fact, have Multiple Personality: Who cares? And so what?

Remember, we are talking about normal multiple personality, as opposed to multiple personality disorder. Normal multiple personality is normal not because everyone has it—most people, 70%, don’t—but because, by definition, it does not cause the person distress, dysfunction, or disability. Indeed, normal multiple personality may be an asset for creativity.

So if having this kind of multiple personality does not cause any major problem, of what interest is it, and to whom? Would it be of interest to:

Novelists? Aspiring novelists? Agents, editors, publishers, interviewers, or biographers of novelists? Friends or family of novelists? Literature professors? Psychologists? Book reviewers? Readers? Cultural critics? Intellectuals? Ordinary people? Others?

If you fall into any of these groups, I would welcome your comment, which you can make by clicking “comment” at the end of this post (or at the end of any post in this blog).
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