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.

— Share site with friends.

Saturday, November 24, 2018


Split Inconsistent Narrative: The Story Changes Horses in Midstream

“Split Inconsistent Narrative” is a name I am trying out for a phenomenon I have previously discussed in relation to such novels as The Third Man by Graham Greene and You Must Remember This by Joyce Carol Oates.

In such novels, there is a marked discrepancy between the first half and the second half. In the two mentioned, there is a character with multiple personality in the first half, but this is completely forgotten in the second half, and there is no apparent reason.

In contrast, an unreliable narrator may be quite purposeful. The prototypical example is The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie, in which the narrator turns out to be the murderer.

However, an unreliable narrator whose unreliability has no such obvious purpose may be a sign of the writer’s multiple personality, because when an author switches from one personality to another, he tends to provide inconsistent points of view. An example would be Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw.

How does a Split Inconsistent Narrative get written? An author’s editorial personalities may look at the first half and decide it is too good to discard, but they don’t like where it is going.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thank you for taking the time to comment (whether you agree or disagree) and ask questions (simple or expert). I appreciate your contribution.