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, September 22, 2024

“Dark Prince” (1), a paranormal romance (2) by Christine Feehan: Mikhail, living in a world without women, is astonished to hear a woman’s voice in his head


“Mikhail Dubinsky…could no longer bear…the stark, raw loneliness of his existence…Mikhail, who had filled his life with art and philosophy, with work and science, knew the weapons of man and had learned to become a weapon himself…His people were a dying species…There were no women to continue their species…The males were essentially predators…For each it was necessary to find his missing half, the life-mate that would bring him forever into the light…"(1, pp. 1-2).

“The trouble is not really being alone, it’s being lonely…” [said a voice in his head].

“Curious, he replayed the words, listened to the voice. Female, young, matter-of-fact, highly intelligent.

“I have found it to be so,” he agreed.

“Who could speak telepathically other than one of his kind? Now hearing this voice, this voice of a human woman, he was astonished…

“How is it you can talk to me?” (1, p. 3).


Comment: Romance characters, reflective of Romance authors, as is true of literary characters and authors, may hear italicized voices in their head, possibly (probably) voices of undiagnosed alternate personalities, as discussed in many past posts.


1. Christine Feehan. Dark Prince (A Carpathian Novel), New York, Avon, 1999/2011.

2. Wikipedia. “Paranormal romance." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal_romance. 

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)