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.

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Saturday, July 23, 2022

Pseudonyms and Pen Names: In multiple personality, the names of alternate personalities are, of course, pseudonyms.


Search “pseudonym” for past discussions of various writers.


1. Carmela Ciuraru. Nom de Plume: A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms. Harper, 2011.

2. Adrian Room. Dictionary of Pseudonyms, Fifth Edition. McFarland & Co., 2010.

3. T. J. Carty. A Dictionary of Literary Pseudonyms in the English Language. UNKNO, 2000.

4. Michael Peschke. International Encyclopedia of Pseudonyms: Real Names. K. G. Saur, 2007.

5. Wikipedia. “Pseudonym.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudonym

6. Wikipedia. “Pen Name.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pen_name

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