The Sign game for characters
The other day I was innocently waiting in a drive-thru line when, on the phone, Melissa started on about Zodiac signs. I'll be honest (sorry, Vicki!) I don't put stock into horoscopes or pay attention to Zodiac signs. The idea that the month/date I was born on has anything to do with who I am as a person rankles me. It makes me feel like my free will has a leash around it, and I refuse to accept that. Melissa, smart ass that she is, replied to my reasoning by saying, "Refusing to be nailed down by a description is right under 'Common Gemini traits', dear." See? Smart ass ;)
Anyway, then she asked me if I knew what my character's signs were. She knew hers, and some of their personalities had been influenced by what sign they were when she was writing. Furthermore, this topic came up because on Melissa's discussion board, fans had been guessing her character's signs (link: http://www.melissa-marr.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?id=60 ) According to Melissa, they were right, too. I thought that was a really interesting way to flesh out character traits, but I said no, I had no idea what sign my character's were. I know my hero / heroine's birth dates, but I'd never bothered to look up what sign that made them.
So, she prodded me to tell her my character's birth dates so she could find their signs. Rather reluctantly, I did. My hero Bones was born November 20th, and my heroine Cat was May 9th. That made Bones a Scorpio, and Cat a Taurus. Melissa read me those descriptions. She was gleeful, because the Zodiac description for Bones matched how she saw him, and (barring one inconsistency) Cat matched how she thought of her as well.
Now, descriptions written for signs are filled with enough traits that they could be applicable to a wide range of people...however, I was very surprised at what the dominant traits listed were, and how those did apply to my characters. Does this make me a believer in the powers of the Zodiac? *grin* No, but it did make for fun seeing how certain aspects lined up.
And it got me thinking - had some part of my memory as a teenager, giggling with my friends over our signs, resurfaced when I was determining what month my hero/ heroine were born in, so that their traits matched their sign? Or is there something about writing characters with certain dominant personality traits that makes us as writers picture certain months that seems to evoke those images for us? November is a favorite month for me, because it stands on the cusp of winter, and I guess I think of it as the quiet before the storm. Likewise, I suppose you could say May stands on the cusp of summer, and for many of you, that may mean lazy days of temperate weather. Me, I live in Florida, so that means Hurricane season. Could there have been a subconscious character imagery I'd gone for, without even realizing it until now, when I picked my character's birth dates? Or is the Zodiac thing more ingrained in us, even non-believer like myself, than we give it credit for?
How about you? If you know when your character's fictional birthdays is, what's your character's sign? Was it deliberate? If it wasn't, go to a Zodiac site (here's one: http://zodiac-signs-astrology.com/ ) and tell me how it lines up with your character's personality!
-Jeaniene Frost (and Melissa Marr, since this was her idea :)