How do you ensure your characters are as believable as possible? The more real they are, the better your readers will be able to connect with them.
Did you know that the moment you’re born, the alignment of the planets and stars have an effect on who you’ll become? Astrology plays a huge part in the development of personality and characteristics, and it all of it has an impact on how a person’s life plays out: what decisions they’ll make, why they make certain decisions, timeframes of their life that big decisions will be made. Where the planets and other objects are located in the skies when you’re born also give a hint at what types of careers people choose, what types of people they’re drawn to, how they interact with others, their values, their priorities, etc..
I’m a very spiritual person in this way. I find astrology so fascinating, and the amount of knowledge out there is overwhelming (in an exciting way).
Have you ever been to a tarot reader? A palm reader? Tea leaf reader? What about an astrologist?
After visiting a psychic and having my palm read, doing a tarot reading, and an astrology reading, it answered so many questions for me I didn’t know I needed the answers to. It confirmed things I believed and wondered about and nudged me through doors that had been opened for me my entire life. Her readings were so accurate and telling, it brought tears to my eyes.
After learning the basics about interpreting oracle cards, I started a collection of decks and began to do some readings and interpretations based purely out of interest and fascination. I started learning about astrology charts and natal charts so I could gain a better understanding of the people around me—as well as myself.
Recently, it dawned on me: if astrological objects and events have a defined and meaningful impact on real people’s lives, why can’t they do the same for characters’ lives? We want our characters to be as real and believable as possible, so this is a great way to infuse them with believable traits.
To help me design and build my characters, I’ve begun using astrology to help me shape them. And to my surprise, when I entered information into the chart makers for some of the characters I’ve already written, I’ve found them to be an accurate depiction of traits based on their charts. I found this really cool because it confirms my intuitiveness about this sort of thing.
Where do I go to do this?
There’s a website called Café Astrology that is chock full of information, charts you can use to find out more about yourself and others—and about your relationship with others and why it’s working or not. You can find the charts at https://astro.cafeastrology.com/natal.php.
So a character’s strengths and weaknesses, and an astrological reasoning of WHY they are like they are, can be found here. Habits, worries, traits, behaviours, ways of thinking, all of it can be traced back to what was going on in the skies when they were “born.” All you need is a birth date and location, and if you want an even more accurate chart, you can input a time of birth as well.
Now, this might look confusing:
But the great thing about Café Astrology is that it offers detailed explanations of each aspect on the chart.
And to get an idea of how two characters would get along, input their birth dates in the Compatibility Tool area. It examines emotional and romantic aspects of a relationship, as well as on social, intellectual, and spiritual levels. It’s really a fantastic way to see how your characters will (or should) interact based on their personalities.
The more detailed your characters are, the more believable they’ll be. Now, remember this is all information that only you need to know as the writer. You don’t want to be putting all the reasons why your character is this way or that way or does this or says that. That would be a lot of unnecessary and boring words on the page. Readers don’t need to know all the whys. But when you’re creating a believable character, the more background details you can understand about them, the more you’ll be able to get inside their head, put their voice on the page, and make the readers connect with them. That is the goal as a writer: to make readers connect with and care about the characters so they keep reading to find out what’s going to happen next and how the character will deal with obstacles in their path to getting what they want/need.
I’m definitely not an astrology expert (it would take years to fully grasp it all without having to look things up!), but I’m happy to answer any basic questions you have about astrology, card readings, etc. It’s been a while since I’ve done a reading for someone but it’s something I enjoy. These are also topics I could talk about endlessly! I love anything to do with past lives, reincarnation, soulmates, soul connections, soul groups, astrology, psychic stuff, etc.
And here’s another related question for you: have you ever done a past life regression session? Now THAT is interesting, and it’s something I have done and want to do more of. Even one simple session gave me so much more understanding about past lives and my connections with certain people in this lifetime, and it’s even helped to inspire a book that I’ll be writing soon! 😉
Do you use any cool tools to help build your characters and make sure they’re believable? Let me know in the comments below! Don’t forget to hit the like and share buttons! 😊🙏🏻
Kathleen Foxx || Author || Editor || Podcast Host 