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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MPD Textbooks: — Frank W. Putnam, MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) (a.k.a. Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), New York, The Guilford Press, 1989. —James G. Friesen, PhD. Uncovering the Mystery of MPD, (includes discussion of demonic possession) Eugene, Oregon, Wipf and Stock Publishers,1997.

Thursday, May 14, 2026

“True Crime, a memoir” by Patricia Cornwell (1, 2): Imaginary Companion “Mr. Owl,” and Alternate Personality, Protagonist “Kay Scarpetta”

“That afternoon when I got home from school, I retreated to my bedroom closet in hopes I might have a chat with my secret friend Mr. Owl. I don’t know his origin. He wasn’t a character in any story I was aware of, including those I wrote. The Mr. Owl in the Tootsie Pop commercial didn’t exist at the time. My Mr. Owl was unique, and I believed he was real…


“As I would feel when writing novels someday, it didn’t seem he was my idea or invented. One day he fluttered into my mind of his own volition. It was as if he discovered me and not the other way around. Decades later, I’d feel the same way about my medical examiner protagonist Kay Scarpetta and other characters…” (1, p. 104).


“If I’m receptive and attentive, treasures find me, including stories. My ideas aren’t premeditated, my best work is never forced. I’m constantly surprised by what I consider gifts from the universe. The only requirement is that I try” (1, p. 179).


Comment: In Multiple Personality (a.k.a. Dissociative identity), an alternate personality is a part of the mind that is experienced as having a mind of its own.


1. Patricia Cornwell. True Crime, a memoir. New York Grand Central Publishing, 2026.

2. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Cornwell.


Added same day:  Search 'Patricia Cornwell' for past posts in this blog.

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