Do Fiction Writers have alternate personalities? 90% probably do, say past study of 50 fiction writers and this study of works by 200 fiction writers

Two Studies:

1. Marjorie Taylor’s study of 50 fiction writers: https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/blogs.uoregon.edu/dist/7/8783/files/2014/07/TaylorHodgesKohanyi-130mpe0.pdf , and

2. my study of works by 200 great fiction writers, here.

Authors Aren’t Joking

Long before doing this study, in my hope of one day writing a great novel, I used to read author interviews for tips on writing. I found it amusing that many novelists told the same joke: they talked with their characters. And it was only after my clinical experience with multiple personality—in which people may talk with their alternate personalities—that I finally realized: authors aren’t joking.

Hypothesis

Most fiction writers have multiple personality, but since it doesn’t cause them distress and dysfunction, it is not a mental disorder, only a trait.

Multiple personality trait occurs in up to 30% of the general public. It is a normal version of the mental illness, multiple personality disorder (aka dissociative identity disorder) (1.5% of public).

Multiple personality trait is normal, but it is truly dissociative (divided consciousness), not just role-playing. Multiple personality disorder is classified among the dissociative disorders, which are not psychoses and have nothing to do with schizophrenia.

Freud’s Blind Spot

The concept of dissociation originated with French psychologist Pierre Janet (1859-1947). Freud (1856-1939) acknowledged the existence of multiple personality, but since his rival concept of repression could not explain multiple personality, Freud had a blind spot for it in his clinical work.

Reader’s Blind Spot

Most readers assume that multiple personality in a novel, play, or poem would be obvious. So if it’s not mentioned, and the plot doesn’t appear to have anything to do with multiple personality, readers don’t think of it.

Findings

Most symptoms of multiple personality in literature are not labelled as such, are not obvious to most readers, are not acknowledged by narrators or characters, and are probably there, not because the author intended to give a character multiple personality, but as a reflection of the author’s view of ordinary psychology, due to the author’s own multiple personality.

This is true of literature ranging from classics like Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina to contemporary bestsellers like Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl.

Indeed, I found this so common that I had to coin terms for two kinds of it. Anna Karenina is an example of unacknowledged multiple personality, in which the protagonist’s symptoms of multiple personality are integral to plot and character. Gone Girl is an example of gratuitous multiple personality, in which the protagonist’s symptoms of multiple personality are unnecessary (except that they reflect the author’s view of ordinary psychology).

Who Cares?

Anna Karenina, as I explain in past posts, is thrown under the train by an alternate personality, which would be interesting for a reader to know. And you just won’t understand some of what goes on in Gone Girl unless you are aware of the protagonist’s multiple personality.

Writers

Fiction writers who sense that they have two or more selves, parts, voices, I’s, etc.; who may even have written about it or mentioned it in interviews; and who may have thought that what they have is like multiple personality, but that it couldn’t be multiple personality, because they are not mentally ill, may find this site interesting, because it explains that most people with multiple personality have the trait, not the disorder, and are not mentally ill.

Where to Begin

You need Search. If you are using a smartphone and don’t see a Search Box at the top of your screen, please switch to a larger category of device.

I recommend that you begin by searching the following, in this order: 1. Dickens, 2. Oates, 3. Anna Karenina, and 4. Gone Girl. 

Subsequently, search the name and subject indices, and choose whatever writers and subjects you wish. Many past posts from over the last five and half years are surprising and enjoyable.

[Added 5:43 p.m.: I wrote this post in coordination with an advertisement for this blog that was supposed to appear today. The ad had the headline: "Do Fiction Writers have alternate personalities?" However, the ad did not run, and the people at the publication who can find out why have left for a three-day holiday weekend.]