Read a biography of Pirandello to learn about the relationship Pirandello had with his mentally unstable wife. Then research the relationship between American author F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, who had numerous emotional breakdowns after 1930 and was institutionalized several times, eventually dying in a fire in a mental hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1948. Compare the two unstable marriages and their effects on the literary careers of the two authors.

Read Pirandello's "Preface" to Six Characters in Search of an Author for his description of the genesis of his play. Then read interviews in such books as In Their Own Words (1988) and The Playwright's Art (1995) to see how contemporary playwrights respond to questions about how they initially discover their characters and stories. "What conclusions can you make about the process of artistic creation?

Research what psychologists say about the human...