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, May 31, 2015

The Following Ignore How Novelists Think: Cognitive Psychology, Literary Critics, Literary Theory, Literature Professors, Author Interviews, Literary Biography

In the last post, I quoted award-winning novelist, Ursula K. Le Guin, on how novelists think (they think like people with multiple personality). Past posts have quoted other famous writers as saying much the same thing. Yet, textbooks on cognitive psychology, textbooks on literary criticism and theory, literature professors, author interviews, and literary biographies have little or nothing to say about it.

Two points: First, most of these famous novelists, most or all of the time, are NOT crazy. They are high-functioning, productive citizens. Second, it is extremely unlikely that novelists are the only people with a normal version of multiple personality. As previously discussed, 90% of novelists probably have it, but 30% of the general public may, too.
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