The Sun Sign and Character Development

In astrology, the sun sign represents our wants. It's our character, what we strive to be. Through our sun sign, we seek to distinguish ourselves in some way and carve out a unique identity. If the moon represents our relationship to the maternal figure, then the sun represents how we separate from that figure and leave our mark upon the world. The obvious literary implication, of course, is that the sun sign you choose for your protagonist will be a driving force in his or her efforts to enact change.

However, it would be a mistake to assume that it's only the sun sign that matters. Of course, it helps to know that an Aries will be impulsive and headstrong or a Pisces sensitive and impressionable, but it's really the house that's going to tell you how those identity needs manifest. In addition to the signs, an astrological chart is divided up into twelve houses with various attributes. The rising sign, determined by your time of birth, sets the stage for the whole chart, dictating which planets fall in which houses. For example, in The Girl With the Collywobbles, Aletheia has a first house sun*. This makes her individualistic, as well as giving her a magnetic quality that attracts the attention of others, but can also bring with it a feeling of self-consciousness, as if always being watched. (Something we'll see even more of in the forthcoming sequel, The Child of Aokigahara.) For her, nothing short of absolute individuality will give her a sense of identity.

There are a number of ways in which the sun's driving need for a self can manifest based on what house it's in. For example, a sixth house sun will produce someone whose sense of identity comes through their day-to-day work life. A ninth house sun will give the person an orientation towards philosophy, alternative religions and travel whereas an eleventh house sun produces someone who gets their sense of identity through groups, teams and ideologies.

If you want to get really creative with this, you can make the driving need something that's unrealized as a source of inner conflict. A restraining element elsewhere in the chart could make that natural area of expression harder to realize and therefore could be a hang-up for them. Imagine, for example, someone who has their sun in the tenth house, ruling careers, but who has a lot of planets in more fluidic, adaptable signs. You'll have someone whose sense of identity comes through a career but is held back by their tendency to be changeable and unfocused. The need to have an identity through their career will be at odds with their tendency to get distracted or explore options. The complexity of the chart provides a lot of options for brainstorming your characters' motivations.

Next up: the influence of the moon



*However, this doesn't mean she is an Aries rising. The planets fall in houses depending on the specific degree of a given planet, house, etcetera. In Aletheia's case, she's a Pisces rising with a first house Aries sun.

Character Development and Astrology

I'm fascinated by personality constructs, all personality constructs. I'm particularly interested in the enneagram and Myers-Briggs, and my diaries are full of lengthy analyses of my characters' types. However, I don't like using them to determine my characters' personalities beforehand. Rather, I write the character and after the fact, I mull over what type they might be.

Astrology is another matter entirely.

I find it very useful to come up with a character's chart in advance of writing them. When I wrote Collywobbles, I had a sun sign in mind for Aletheia's character, but didn't immediately create an astrological chart. However, in subsequent books, I've found myself increasingly creating charts in advance of writing a character. I use Astrolabe's free chart generator. Sometimes, I'll have a specific sign in mind for a character, but other times, I'll use a random generator app to determine their sign, as well as where and when they were born. Once I generate the chart, I'll study up on the character implications. Sue Tompkins' book, The Contemporary Astrologer's Handbook, is an invaluable resource for me, and I rely heavily on Howard Sasportas' The Twelve Houses as well.

Astrology gets a bad rap, largely due to people voicing opinions about it who have never delved any deeper than their daily horoscope. I find it to be especially ill-informed when proponents of the Myers-Briggs bash on astrology, since Jung embraced astrology and vice-versa. The truth is, psychoanalysis is a big part of chart interpretation. Authors like Tompkins speak to the underlying motives indicated by a chart, and certain positions, like the moon sign and the fourth house, delve deeply into the early childhood experience. The usefulness in thinking about these things in character development should be obvious. If you know that an Aquarius Moon predicts a detached mother, and your character has a particularly emotional placement (e.g. a Scorpio sun), then already you're getting into some of the underlying conflicts in the character's psyche. Other placements, such as which sun the house falls in or what sort of aspects to Neptune a character has, are equally informative.

I don't adhere religiously to charts. Usually, I'll go through a chart and look for any placements that are particularly interesting and use that as a starting point. I also find it helpful to cross-reference with other characters. I've occasionally had character dynamics leap out at me by glancing at a newly created chart.

In subsequent posts, I'll be going through the planets, explaining what they say about the personality as it can be applied to character creation. I'll get into the houses somewhat too. I'll start with the big ones (the sun, the moon and ascendant) and take it from there. Stay tuned!

 

The Queen of Wands

Since the tarot court cards feature prominently in The Girl With the Collywobbles, I'll be providing in-depth explanations of my characters' court cards. I'm giving a general overview and I'll state which card belongs to which character, but I otherwise won't tie it into the plot on account of potential spoilers. For that reason, these posts will be of interest whether you've read the book yet or not.

The Queen of Wands rules from the 21st degree of Pisces to the 20th degree of Aries. Lon Milo Duquette states that this corresponds to those born between March 11th and April 10th. Pulling charts, I've found that to be off by a couple of days, but it's good for a general ballpark. If you're close to the cutoff, you can find your exact degree here.

The Queen of Wands is a natural leader. She has a magnetic quality about her, the kind of person that's able to draw others to her by the sheer force of her energy. She is kind-hearted, steadfast, and persistent. She exudes a natural confidence, and can be quite loving when the impulse strikes her.

On the down side, she's prone to melancholy and moodiness in general. This leads to brooding and the tendency to take slights where none are intended. Although she does well in attracting both devoted followers and loving suitors, her explosive temper and tendency to misjudge situations can easily alienate her champions. This same tendency to misjudge situations can result in her being easily deceived, a fact that likely plays into the hypersensitivity and occasional panicked outbursts you find in this character.

The Queen of Wands gets a bad rap in a lot of the descriptions. Aleister Crowley's interpretation of this card strikes me as particularly harsh. I'm not sure if that's because as a Libra, he looked unfavorably on his astrological opposite, or if it's a reflection on how women with dominant personalities were (and still are) perceived. Regardless, there's a genuine warmth associated with this card and author Robert Wang reminds us that the placement of her hand on the leopard's head demonstrates the incredible taming power of the Queen. Although capable of great ferocity herself, her natural authority brings the environment under control. This card represents a person with a profound power that can be destructive among the undisciplined, but which is constructive and stabilizing in someone who has mastered self-control.

This card corresponds to our protagonist, Aletheia. Her birthday is April 4th.

It's out!

The Girl With the Collywobbles is now available on Amazon. You can buy it here.

Preview of the Cover

The cover is ready to go! The interior is already finished, so I'll be uploading The Girl With the Collywobbles to Createspace this weekend.

Sneak Peek

Here's a preview of the first page of the book. 

   Aletheia held the covers close to her, tight under her arms like a plush toy that she might have owned as a child. She’d been awake the better part of an hour but couldn’t quite bring herself to place foot on the floor and get out of bed. Last night was another bout of bad dreams and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, Jake nearly forgot to say goodbye again. She startled awake once she heard the door shut. That was when she tore out of the bedroom and then ran out on to the porch barefoot, catching him just as he headed up the walkway towards the old yellow Honda Civic.
“Sorry,” Jake mumbled, sandy brown hair sliding over thick and square black glasses. “So tired, I only got two hours sleep last night, I totally spaced.”
Aletheia wrapped her arms around him. He hugged her with one arm and gave her a peck on the cheek and that was enough to put her in the fetal position under the covers for the next three hours.
Aletheia rolled over and grabbed her phone. She had four missed calls from Arturo and a text message from Thalia. Arturo left no voicemail message but Thalia had responded to Aletheia’s text, Sea slugs and synapses trump girlfriends, with her characteristic graciousness: You know we love you, dear. xoxo. 
Aletheia smiled then and slid out of bed; God, but she treasured her mornings alone. Between her, Jake, and Steve, the house often felt very crowded in the evenings. Steve was their housemate and a member of Jake’s cohort and if ever there was a person to make a place feel crowded, it would be him, eating her food, interrupting their television watching, and invading Aletheia’s precious catch-up time with Jake. In the mornings, though, Aletheia had the place to herself. As she sat on the soft gray couch sipping her coffee, she relished the sanctity of her own thoughts and yet the four missed calls from Arturo nagged at her. She picked up her phone to call him back but his phone went into voicemail after the first ring, the telltale sign that he was already at work. She’d have to wait.
She didn’t want to wait.
She’d have to wait.
No, she’d have to check her feed, she supposed, such that it was. Too early to wade through all of that and really, she ought not to worry, things were so much calmer these days, but no, best to make sure, best to give herself that peace of mind.

Aletheia should have waited.

The only new posting from Arturo was a news article, and with the news article came a comment, and it was really the comment that stopped her in her tracks: when will the NOPD protect us instead of treating us as dispensable? I’ll miss you, sweetie. She hadn’t known the first two very well, three and then two months ago, the first one shocking and unsettling and the second, well, the second one everyone got a little bit nervous, but when no one died the following month, the remaining tarot readers in the square breathed more freely—until now. Aletheia read the article headline, Another Fortune Teller Slaughtered, and, hand trembling, clicked the link.
Thalia Moore, 32, was found dead on the corner of Bourbon Street and Barracks Street at 6:32 this morning.
Aletheia dropped the phone. It spiraled out of her hand, spinning slowly until the rug swallowed it up with a thud. Aletheia was still. For a long time she was still and then for a long time she was drowning and then she thought, What if they find out?

Thalia Flashback

The following is a brief flashback that I had to cut from Collywobbles. Approximately a week before Thalia died, she treated Aletheia to dinner before heading out on the last con they would do together. 


     Aletheia sipped her wine. It went so well with the gnocchi, but she wondered if she ought to be drinking before a job.
     “Dear,” Thalia said. “You are such an amazingly good person, but the world you live in is just so very black and white. Don’t be afraid to let a little sin into your life once in awhile.”
     “I have sin in my life.” Aletheia lifted up the wine glass and pointed to it. “See?”
     Thalia took a sip of her own wine. “That your sin is my virtue only proves my point. You have so much compassion for the weak and helpless but if you never let yourself get out of control, you’ll never know how much our sins can confuse us, how hard it is to know what’s really happening in the moment.”
     “I don’t know. I get plenty confused.”
     “It’s all the thinking. The ivory tower is good for that, but, no, I mean a very different kind of confusion. It would just be so much easier if you went on spring break every now and again. It would help.”