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.

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Saturday, April 24, 2021

“The Dark Half” (post 3) by Stephen King (post 11): Is the Author’s Note merely a joke? Or are S. K. and Stephen King different personalities?


In post 1 on The Dark Half, I quoted its Author’s Note, which immediately follows the title and dedication pages, but precedes the Prologue and the rest of the novel. The Author’s Note has its own page, and here it is in its entirety:


“AUTHOR’S NOTE


I’m indebted to the late Richard Bachman for his help and inspiration. This novel could not have been written without him.


S. K.” (1)


“Richard Bachman” was the pseudonym used by Stephen King for a series of novels (2). Did the “late” Richard Bachman die after helping to write this novel, or are reports of his death greatly exaggerated?


Most readers assume that the author’s note, quoted above, is a joke. And since “Richard Bachman,” objectively speaking, was not a real person, it is a joke. But if Richard Bachman was one of Stephen King’s alternate personalities, it is not merely a joke.


And why is the author’s note signed? The book’s dedication is not signed. Both the unsigned dedication and the author’s note immediately follow the title page, which clearly gives the author’s name, "Stephen King." Don’t the words “author’s note” entail the author, as already given on the title page? Perhaps it is signed for some other reason.


And why is the “author’s note” signed with initials only? Most readers presume that “Stephen King” and “S. K.” mean the same thing. But any reader familiar with multiple personality knows that different personalities may be named with seemingly trivial variations of the person’s name (3, p. 116). These seemingly trivial differences in names help alternate personalities to appear in public, but pass as the regular, host personality, and remain incognito.


1. Stephen King. The Dark Half [1989]. New York, Gallery Books, 2018.

2. Wikipedia. Richard Bachman. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bachman

3. Frank W. Putnam, MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press, 1989.

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