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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Tuesday, August 20, 2024

“My Murder” (post 2) by Katie Williams: A Different Gratuitous Symptom of Multiple Personality in Another Character

“What she didn’t say, what none of them said, what was left for a small traitorous voice inside me to say was: He’d be relieved if he’d gotten away with it, too” (1, p. 184).


Comment: A voice in one’s head (often italicized) with a mind of its own is an alternate personality. And since no character has been labelled as having multiple personality, this symptom of multiple personality is gratuitous, probably reflecting what I call “multiple personality trait” of the author. In this blog, search “gratuitous” to see posts on this issue for other novels with other authors.


Added Aug. 20: In conclusion, what I've explained in terms of multiple personality, the author explains in terms of clones. Your choice.


1. Katie Williams. My Murder. New York, Riverhead Books, 2023

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