An Open Secret—Normal Novelists have-use-enjoy Multiple Personality—and J. B. S. Haldane’s Four Stages in the Acceptance of New Ideas

The Open Secret

My new/old idea—that most fiction writers have a normal version of multiple personality—is more or less common knowledge among novelists. They may not think of it as multiple personality, per se, but, to paraphrase Margaret Atwood: Most novelists have a sense of having one or more personalities in charge of everyday life, and of having one or more other personalities (aka narrative voices, muses, shadows, characters, etc.) involved in the writing.

What do most people think of this idea? How might their attitudes evolve? They will probably go through four stages. I assume that most are still in the first.

Four Stages of New Ideas

by J. B. S. Haldane (1963) 

1. this is worthless nonsense;

2. this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view;

3. this is true, but quite unimportant;

4. I always said so.