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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Monday, August 28, 2023

“The Lions of Lucerne” by Brad Thor: Author finally admits his use of italics means hearing voices, suggesting multiple personality trait


“Not now, a voice inside him said. Turn and let it burn. But it was so hard. Even though he was trained to be a master of his mind and emotions, he was still human” (1, p. 94).


Comment: In this novel, the author had already used italics at least ten times, but without previously acknowledging that it meant his character—and possibly, he, himself—heard voices, which, as discussed in past posts, probably means the author and his character had the high-functioning, creative version of multiple personality, multiple personality trait.


1. Brad Thor. The Lions of Lucerne. New York, Atria, 2002/2020. 

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