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.

Sunday, March 19, 2023

“Mad Honey” (post 2) by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan: Co-author’s character also has voice in her head of an alternate personality


“That’s different, a tiny voice curls in my head. That’s an accident ” (1, p. 302).


Comments: In post 1, the quoted, italicized voice, of an alternate personality, had been heard by Lily, the transgender character written by Jennifer Finney Boylan, the transgender co-author of this novel.


When nonpsychotic persons hear a voice in their head, it is suggestive of multiple personality. And I don’t think that strictly diagnosed transgender persons should be depicted as having multiple personality.


The new quote, in this post, is the italicized voice of an alternate personality heard by Olivia, a character who is not transgender, and was written by co-author Jodi Picoult, who is not transgender, but who, as a novelist, may have multiple personality trait.


1. Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan. Mad Honey. New York, Ballantine Books, 2022. 

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thank you for taking the time to comment (whether you agree or disagree) and ask questions (simple or expert). I appreciate your contribution.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)