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.

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Wednesday, August 5, 2020

Stephenie Meyer (post 6) describes multiple-personality writing process in New York Times interview on “Midnight Sun” (“Twilight” from vampire’s perspective)

I have previously discussed Stephenie Meyer’s multiple personality novel, “The Host.” Search “host meyer” to see those posts.

Background for new New York Times interview: “The Twilight saga, which follows teenage Bella Swan’s romance with Edward Cullen, a century-old vampire, turned into a multimillion-dollar brand following the first book’s release in 2005, producing five movies and millions of devotees around the world, many of whom have been clamoring for ‘Midnight Sun’…”

In the new interview on “Midnight Sun,” she describes her process of fiction writing in terms of three mechanisms: Dictation, evidently from some personality in her head. Switching away from her own personality and becoming the character’s personality. Hearing the thoughts of characters as voices in her head (in multiple personality, referred to as “co-consciousness”).

“…With some of my books, it was like they were writing themselves, and I was just working to keep up with dictation…

“The things that I enjoy[ed] most about [the new book] are — I liked not being the human being [character]. I like that experience, stripping away your humanity and getting to be something other…

“…[Edward] is reading [the other characters’] minds all the time. It’s a reflex reaction for him, he can’t control it, so you get, not just a picture of people, you get the full story all the time, which is kind of overwhelming. I think you get a sense of how overwhelming it would be to constantly have people’s voices in your head…”

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