*Angel

i've been toying with different ideas on how to present this characters dialogue, and I haven't really been able to find one that i think works.

Here's my situation, i have a character with a sort of multi personality, and when he appears his different personalities will almost always be arguing amongst themselves, but also along with 1+ more physical characters around him.

i've thought of several different ways to present,

1st being just in the standard conversation and hope my skill is good enough to represent that it's still him talking just another personality of his,

2nd way i thought of was to always just indent his dialogue when ever he spoke, and

and 3rd way was to italicize his dialogue with in quotations, but i wasn't sure if that'd be confusing since usually (from what i've experienced) character thought that isn't vocalized is usually in italics.


and advice would be great, thank you

terrib

Hummm, good question angel. I think you're going to have to go with your first option....good luck!

Sam Winchester

Is it Multiple Personality Disorder or Schizophrenia? There's a difference.

Multiple Personality Disorder is: a rare dissociative disorder in which two or more personalities with distinct memories and behaviour patterns exist in one individual.

Schizophrenia is: a mental disorder involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behaviour, leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, and withdrawal from reality into fantasy and delusion.

Sam.

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RomanticRose

If you are dealing with Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder), the conversations out loud may be a problem. Dialogue between different "alters" is usually an internal one.

I only know this because a friend of mine has DID.

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lin

A classy way to pull this off (which may have been done--I don't read this sort of fiction) would be to have the personalities just speak under their own names. You can sort out who they are as you go along and have some fun.

Not that hard to keep it straight... and I will say again that impulse to remove any possible confusion from the reader is NOT a good one.

He looked up as she walked in. "Alice? What are you doing here?"
Tiffany stared at him blankly. "Who are you talking to?"
"You see anybody else here?"
"Yeah," she said. "But I can fix that." She pulled out the pistol and pointed it with a firm hand. That pissy little Alice would be trembling at a moment like this. Well, she was going to get hers, too. Meanwhile...
The first shot hit him in the mouth, etc..........

The film "Fight Club" does some REALLY cool things with this.

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Mike C

Would that make a difference to how you'd write it?

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Sam Winchester

Of course. Multiple Personality Disorder (or Dissociative Identity Disorder) is having two or more personalities. Schizophrenia is being delusional. The characters would have different pecularities.

In my most recent novel, I had to research for one of my characters who had DID.

Sam.

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Mike C

I think I was actually implying that your post wasn't relevant.

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Sam Winchester

Fair enough. Still, he said 'sort of' multiple personality. Which means he doesn't know exactly what the character has. Which in turn led me to believe that he might have had Schizophrenia instead.

Sam.

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Mike C

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Sam Winchester

Point taken, Mike. I don't know what you were implying there, but I'm going to leave well enough alone.

Sam.

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seigfried007

Schizophrenia hears the voices differently too--they seem to come from outside (like auditory hallucinations), whereas DID alter voices are from within.

http://www.psyter.org/allegati/180/Kluft.pdf this is one of the more informative .pdfs I've found online concerning DIDs. Table 2 is especially informative as it details how those ten typical alters come about.

I can't remember where I found the list of roles that alters have in the system, but Welcome to the ISSTD: Join Our Community! has lots of info and you may be able to find it there. I remember an enforcer and protector, but can't recall the names for the others.

I've written DID characters and I've found that you just need to let it be known that A)the character's dialogue is occuring internally and B) that these alters exist right off the bat. Describe the reactions of whichever alters happen to be out at a given time (they do sleep, and not all of them are aware of everything that goes on at any given time because they may be visiting a room in the often elaborate internal world).

For instance, I had a very interesting man who worked in the adult film industry and happened to have a very nasty past. He had fourteen alters (not an extravagant amount as the last average I heard was 10). Alters also fit into several roles, which you should research (not that you haven't).

For instance, say A Tienen wakes up one morning and realizes that he has to go to work at the porn studio--a job harmful for his psyche. His stress summons the protector personailty 18in who usurps the body and goes to work in his place while A Tienen retreats to an internal garden.

At the very least, you'll want a clear transition in the exposition or three dots to let the reader know A Tienen has left the building. Now, you can transition in the exposition and show 18in's day which may or may not be more confusing for the reader. You can also describe Tienen's retreat and what the garden's like and what state 18in leaves him in later.

So long as the reader knows who's outside versus who's inside, you should be good. I've found it's actually easier for everyone if you write the DID person as a non-POV character or only pick a few personalities. It's easier for a lot of readers to sympathize with teh character when they're not stuck in the maelstrom of his head (gets overwhelming). However, if you show the character from the POV of his girlfriend, we can see it more easily because it's not crowded with often over-done dialogue between alters (who don't necessarily talk to each other that often--just like 'real' people). It also lets you focus on non-verbal cues more.

For instance, the lady at the counter of the local diner both A Tienen and 18in frequent would notice the difference between the two easily. One is self-effacing, speaks in boyish, self-conscious whispers, often bruised, sits hunched over, wears lots of faded jeans and brown shirts, orders Diet Cokes and can't bring himself to eat anything with calories. The other stands sits tall, grins from ear-to-ear, might slap a waitreses heinie as a compliment, loves thick burgers an lots of fries, wears garish eye and lip make-up, often wears black leather pants and tight, bright colored tee-shirts emblazoned with 18in on the front, and can be belligerant, crude or even violent with unruly customers. You can't not notice the difference.

Both of those men are in the same body--big, handsome body at that. However, it's kind of like Evil Twin Syndrome where identical twins somehow don't look alike because they have such different perspectives on life. Different facial expression, postures, ways of walking, ways of talking (tone, language, depth, accent, vocabulary, courtesy), handicaps, interests, friends and aquaintances.

If you're stuck in that head, you won't be able to write those differences so well because nobody thinks about their own body language as much as someone else--plus, you as a writer won't be able to state the dialogue and every mannerism so well because you'll be distracted with everything else going on in the system. It's very difficult to figure which reactions (and even whose reactions) to put in because so much can be going on at once and not all of it has an effect on the story at all.

Paraphrasing works wonders too.

Also, since not all alters are aware of everything (most can only peek in on specific other alters, for instance, and some aren't aware of others at all and therefore can't interrupt their daily lives with dialogue) it may thin the dialogue.

Italics are best used when speech sounds funny otherwise I might tell you to use that option.

Sorry about the length.... ugh

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*Angel

alright thanks everyone for your advice and input.

To clarify a few things, yes the character has Multi-personality disorder(D.I.D.) thank you for clearing that up.

the personalities are aware of each other, and are in a sense aware they share the same body and the same sense.
For examples if one feels pain the others will feel it as well, though their individual tolerances are different. This is actually kind of important cause the dominant personality will often self inflict pain unto its self to gain order and control of the other personalities when their arguing gets out of control and he wishes to speak with out interruption


I suppose my character won't have a traditional(or real) version of DID. the majority of the personalities conversation's(arguments) will be external.
the character is in my fantasy story so nicely i do have a bit of leeway as far as realism is concerned

thank you

Only problem is the personalities go by a single name, though when speaking of themselves to other characters, they will refer to themselves as "we"

and you're probably right about the impulse to remove confusion, it would probably get really confusing and take away a lot from everything if i try to use formating to further explain what's going on. if i can't do it with simply dialogue and description i should probably think about changing it to something else.

Thank you.

This helped a great deal with developing the character further.

Thank you


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Thanks everyone

I think i will now go ahead and just set it up as a normal dialogue, making the characters disorder obvious from the beginning and using the DID characters environment/different speech and behavioral patterns to state that it is an conversation amongst them or that a different personality is speaking.


Thanks again.

lin

Just by the way. Multiple personality disorder is pretty much bullshit. You get the feeling it's all over the place, but it's not. I don't know if anybody has ever actually recorded a real, legitimate instance of this.

Not that I haven't seen people doing it. It plays REALLY well with shrinks. Anybody turning into somebody else can count on huge attention and re-inforcement. The first "case" of this was the "Three Faces of Eve". Which inspired a boom in copy-cats.

Here's some chick went into a disassociative or fugue state or whatever and grabbed the attention of a shrink with a book deal exploding into his eyes and suddenly she's found herself. Give them the psychodrama and you're a star. Last time I heard she'd developed about a hundred personalities, but the act had gone stale by then.

This is the classic example, to me, of iatrogenic disorder--problems caused by treatment.

The stucture necessary for this to happen is profound. Personality is not like a skin pulled over the program like a brower or iPod. Nothing like this would sustain for very long...unless reinforced. It's kind of like you don't REALLY find a lot of cases of amnesia. And you sure as hell don't find the bump on the head-cant remember/another bump does remember kind seen in countless films and TV shows.

It's a VERY hip thing to claim. I've seen people whining about it on psych forums (and the same people with different cool maladies du jour on other forums) It's a pretty good malingering/beat the rap thing. The only "case" I "observed" in my years working on psych wards and clinics was a sharpie trying to get out of the army. He set it up from jumpstreet: he was originally brought to the clinic by MP's after attracting attention playing a game of tennis against himself. (Seriously. I swear to God. And they shinks bought his act)
He had some sophistication in psych. His three manifestations were a classic skit of ego, id, superego. He would like put his hands over his face and emerge as another person. One of his personalities was "Eigon"...the raw force of id, a raging savage. This is great: he would only allow Eigon out when held in his chair by restraints or strait jacket.
So is this: Finally his "normal" personality, and the wimpy, reticent "superego" one dragged Eigon off somewhere "in back" and beat the crap out of him and forced him to behave.
The shrinks...otherwise intelligent, educated men, bought into this like gold stocks. Visions of papers and maybe even books danced through their heads. I saw a guy on grand rounds practically begging the guy to come up with a new personality for him.

We (the psychometic techs) knew he was full of shit, but approved. We didn't like being in the army against our will, either. But one did suggest to the psychiatrist in charge (the psychologists were just as sucked in, by the way) that the guy be given a diagnostic workup, instead of them just talking to him. They never did actually.

The guy got out. He would have gotten out sooner, but the shrinks didn't want to let him go.

I'm not saying there isn't somebody out there somewhere who has different personalities taking over their body, but I seriously doubt it. I'd say they are all either grandstanders, fakers, or puppets who are manifesting this shit for reasons mostly having to do with advantages in the mental health system.

I'd be willing to bet my whole wad that I could set up a program in a couple of days that would "cure" close to 90% of these people in a couple of weeks just by punishing the response instead of rewarding it, maybe with some rigged up evidence that you get more respect for coming clean than for trotting out more roles.

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lin

By the way, if I ever land back in prison and am going to be there awhile I'd wiggle my way into a psych situation (calmer lifestyle and easier to escape)

And this is the way I'd do it.

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