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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Wednesday, October 12, 2022

“Plum Island” by Nelson DeMille (post 3): The protagonist’s line, quoted in post 2, which is not rendered in italics is out of character


Detective John Corey is known for his continual wisecracks. It is one of the characteristics that make him entertaining, and make him suitable to be one of this bestselling author’s recurring characters.


Of Corey’s two thoughts quoted in post 2, it is his thought rendered in italics that is more typical for him. His other, unfunny, bland, goody-goody thought, “My goodness,” which is not rendered in italics, is out of character for him. And this is the main reason most readers do not question the italics, which they think are used only to highlight one of his wisecracks.


If I am right that the italics indicates a contribution by one of the author’s alternate personalities, then this is an example of how a fiction writer’s multiple personality trait contributes to his success. 

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