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, August 17, 2019


To repeat, this site is serial book (not typical blog). Plus: Is multiple personality trait in fiction writers plausible? And why should readers care?

My recent posts are only the latest mini-chapters in this serial book, which so far has 1,700 mini-chapters on 240 fiction writers, and on what multiple personality is really like.

To enjoy this free, online book, you need to see its Search Box (to access the name and subject indices, and then to search whatever writer or subject you want that day). Most mobile devices and smartphones will not see the Search Box. So when you have a larger category of device available, please use it for this site.

If you are wondering if this site is plausible, and why readers should care, consider the following:

Most medical and psychiatric illnesses have a normal version that is much more common than the illness. For every person with high blood pressure, there are many more people with normal blood pressure. For every person with clinical depression, there are many more people who feel sad at times. And for every person with multiple personality disorder (the mental illness), there are many more people with “multiple personality trait,” which is what I call the normal version. It is more common in fiction writers than in the general public, because it is helpful in the fiction writing process.

This is useful for readers of fiction to know about, because unlabeled and unacknowledged aspects of the author’s multiple personality may be reflected in the author’s works.

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