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, February 23, 2019


New York Times Book Review: Readers’ Response to Advertisement of This Blog in Their Tuesday, February 19, 2019 Newsletter

The New York Times Book Review, published every Sunday, has two newsletters that are emailed to interested subscribers every Friday and Tuesday. The Friday newsletter provides advanced access to the complete contents of the upcoming Sunday Book Review. The Tuesday newsletter is an abridged retrospective.

To see whether readers of the Book Review would have any interest in this blog, I scheduled ads for this blog in its newsletters of Tuesday, February 19, 2019 and Friday, March 8, 2019.

The headline of both ads is “Do Fiction Writers have alternate personalities?” The ad is a link to this blog. If a reader clicks on the ad, they come directly to this blog.

In response to the first ad, there were significantly increased visits to the blog. But after three days, visits to the blog were back at their pre-ad rate, which I interpret as indicating no significant interest in this blog by Book Review readers.

One reason for lack of interest could be that most people routinely use smartphones. Between one-half and three-quarters of people responding to the first ad were using smartphones, which do not show the main features of the blog, like its Search Box, which you need to access the blog’s posts on 200 great writers.

Also, a greater number of Book Review subscribers read their Friday newsletter than read their Tuesday newsletter, so it’s possible that the response to my ad in the upcoming Friday, March 8th newsletter will be bigger.

But they just may not be interested.
Posted by at

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.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)