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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781782792420 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Hunt, John Publishing |
| Publication date: | 11/29/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 186 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Astro-characters
A writer's guide to creating compelling fictional characters with the signs of zodiac
By Judy Hall
John Hunt Publishing Ltd.
Copyright © 2013 Judy HallAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-78279-242-0
CHAPTER 1
How to Use this Book
Forming characters! Whose? Our own or others? Both. And in that momentous fact lies the peril and responsibility of our existence.
Elihu Burritt (Sagittarius sun, Taurus moon)
The signs of the zodiac can be looked on as archetypes: recurrent motifs deeply ingrained in the human psyche that drive human behaviour. These archetypes have been described for at least three thousand years so it's no wonder readers identify with them. The zodiac archetypes broadly delineate how someone born under each sun-sign will act, think and feel and they don't shy away from the darker, hidden sign of human nature. In ancient times the signs were given names that not only resembled the zodiac constellations in the sky but also described the temperament that went with each zodiac personality. The profiles in this book are drawn with a somewhat jaundiced eye, delineating the darker facets of the signs but that's what makes them useful to writers – and interesting to readers. We don't want to stay on the surface. We need to incorporate quirks, flaws and foibles to make our protagonists authentic – and intriguing.
Celestial archetypes
Aries is the Ram and those horns head-butt their way through life.
Taurus is the Bull: strong and slow to anger but watch out when it charges.
Gemini is the Twins: the first human sigil in the zodiac and oh how the twins love to share ideas.
Cancer is the Crab with the tough shell, soft underbelly, and claws that hold on tight.
Leo is the Lion: proud leader of the pack.
Virgo is now the Virgin, pure and chaste, but this used to be the fruitful Corn Maiden so there's an erotic undertone and huge internal struggle.
Libra is the only inanimate sigil, those Scales judge and weigh things in the balance, swinging wildly until equilibrium is found.
Scorpio is the mesmerising Scorpion, watch out for the vicious sting in the tail.
Sagittarius is the Centaur-Archer that combines animal and human, instinct and intellect, and lets fly that arrow wherever it will.
Capricorn is the Goat. Fleet footed mountain goats quickly make it to the top whilst their domesticated cousins stay corralled within tight limits. In the old Babylonian zodiac, Capricorn was the sea goat with a tail in the waters of the unconscious and head in the intellectual air realm above, blending intuition with reason.
Aquarius, the Water Bearer, pours out the waters of life but tends to be a detached observer of the life that feelings create.
Imaginative, escapist Pisces is summed up by its two interlinked Fishes swimming in opposite directions but forever tied together.
The astro-profiles in this book are built on how the signs will behave, think, speak and feel under different circumstances. This behaviour is embedded deep in the human psyche. Two millennia ago, Marcus Manilius, a Stoic philosopher, described the zodiac characters:
The Ram [Aries] will ever cherish hopes, he will rise from the sudden shipwreck of his affairs to abundant wealth only to meet with a fall, and his desires will lead him to disaster, he will yield his produce for the common good. The Ram has a diffident heart that ever yearns to commend itself by its own praise.
The Bull [Taurus] demands a yoke for its shoulders and neither pauses in the furrows nor relaxes its breast in the dust. Their hearts and bodies derive strength from a massiveness that is slow to move, whilst in their faces dwells the boy-god Love.
The Twins [Gemini] find even work a pleasure, theirs is a life of ease and unfading youth spent in the arms of love. They also discover new paths to the skies. Nature yields to their genius. So many are the accomplishments of which the Twins is fruitful.
The Crab [Cancer] has a grasping spirit and, unwilling to give itself in service, the Crab distributes many kinds of gain, and skill in making profits. He sells seasons of idleness at rates of interest to his liking. His is a shrewd nature and he is ready to fight for his profits.
The Lion [Leo] filled with the urge to adorn their proud portals with pelts spending their lives on spoil and pillaging of stocks. They swagger about to meet the demands of luxury. Their temper is prone to fitful wrath and ready withdrawal and guileless are the sentiments of their honest hearts.
The Virgin [Virgo] minds trained in the learned arts. The impulse to investigate the causes and effects of things. On them she will confer a tongue which charms, the mastery of words, and that mental vision which can discern all things however concealed they may be. Bashfulness handicaps the early years of such persons.
The Scales [Libra] acquainted with the tablets of law, he will know what is permissible and the penalties incurred by doing what is forbidden. Whatever stands in dispute and needs a ruling the pointer of the balance will determine.
The Scorpion [Scorpio] creates natures ardent for war and active service, and a spirit which rejoices in plenteous bloodshed and in carnage more than in plunder.
The Centaur [Sagittarius] delights in imposing a master on every kind of quadruped and taming them. It imparts keenness to the intellect, swiftness of movement and an indefatigable spirit.
Capricorn smelts out riches and folds surehanded the malleable mass. Has a fondness for clothes and wares which dispel the cold. The first half of the sign has a fondness for love and is charged with guilt, the second half has a virtuous old age.
The youthful Waterman [Aquarius] bestows skills such as how to divine springs from under the ground. They who issue from this sign are a gentle and lovable breed and no meanness of heart is theirs; they are prone to suffer losses; and of riches they have neither need nor surfit [sic]. Even thus doth the urn's stream flow.
The Fishes [Pisces] possess a love of the sea. They hide the hook within the bait or the guile within the weel [sic]. The children of this sign have a friendly disposition, swiftness of movement and live where everything is ever apt to change. (Extracted from Manilius, Astronomica)
Descriptions which today would be recognised by astrologers and which are of inestimable value to writers as a reader will instinctively recognise a zodiac-based character.
Astro-personalities
And there appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. Revelations 12:1
For most people astrology is what they read in their 'stars', daily or monthly horoscopes. Such predictions may hint at an astro-personality and each sign's idiosyncratic quirks with comments such as 'your love of gossip' (Gemini) 'your secretive sign ...' (Scorpio), 'your brutal honesty ...' (Sagittarius) or 'your romantic nature ...' (Pisces), but give no indication of what astrology really offers an author. This ancient technique has consistently mapped the vagaries of the human psyche. It gives you a unique insight into people and makes your protagonists leap off the page. No matter how surprising, their behaviour will always be in character.
Writers are very familiar with the process of creating – and dissecting – complexity. We have to be intimate with all the hidden corners of our characters' to fully reveal all their layers. We need to know our characters darkest secrets, their backstory, their hopes and dreams, their struggles and challenges. I believe we can only be truly intimate – and our protagonists authentic – if we are completely honest with the reader, holding nothing of the character back out of fear or favour – although you can of course sneakily hold back for the purpose of creating intrigue and impact at the appropriate moment.
Intimacy is about opening and sharing yourself on all levels with someone other. In the case of writers it is about sharing our characters with our readers, but it also involves sharing ourselves with our characters. All writers advertently or inadvertently put something of themselves into their creations. So intimacy is how close you as a writer can allow someone to come to your character, and how deeply you can share your character's thoughts and feelings, passions and aversions, prejudices and foibles. To be intimate, you have to surrender yourself. Which makes writers vulnerable, so trust is essential for such intimacy. Trust in the process of creativity, trust in our readers, trust in our characters. For some sun-signs this is easy, but for other, more suspicious or introverted signs, intimacy and trust are an enormous challenge. So, writing certain characters will be more challenging than others. Both from your own point of view, according to your personal astrology, and that of your protagonist. But, whichever sign you choose for your character, astrology throws light into the most complex of personalities.
The zodiac profiles
You stars that reigned at my nativity Whose influence hath allotted death and hell Dr Faustus Christopher Marlowe
Each zodiac profile gives you an outline of essential traits for a particular sun sign. A 'crib-sheet' comes first. A thumb nail sketch that gives you an instant identity kit: first impression, appearance, dress, stance, verbal style, likes and dislikes and so on. Incorporate these and already you will have an identifiable character that resonates with your reader. But to add depth, and to place your character in role in the story, this is followed by the zodiac sign itself giving you a more in-depth look at its personality style, what makes that sign tick and what a male or female character with that sun-sign would reveal to you. For each sign there is an example of 'astro-speak' taken from blogs, emails or real-life conversations in which someone with the sun in that sign speaks their truth.
While each sun-sign shares specific characteristics, certain traits will reveal themselves more in one type of relationship than another – lover, co-worker or friend – each of which can be incorporated into your writing. So 'getting to know me' is followed by the sign letting you in on how it acts in love and partnership, friendship and as a co-worker together with a compatibility rating with other signs so that you can introduce tension or harmony between your characters as required. It's up to you to decide how honest that zodiac sign is being with you – some withhold themselves much more than others, letting you only catch sideways glimpses of their true nature. But the language they use will tell you a great deal about how they view themselves and how willing they are to let you enter into their world. Read the spaces between the words to gain the deepest insight.
The sun is only part of your character's own unique self. The qualities that character brings to a relationship or environment are modified by other factors as we will see (which take into account time and place of birth but don't worry, you can use artistic licence) so in the Astro-profiles the moon in a zodiac sign and as the rising-sign mask reveal their secrets to you. However, from the sun-sign alone, it is possible to build a believable, although somewhat shallow, character base and to predict how that character will behave.
What a sun-sign tells you
A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation. Mark Twain (Sagittarius sun, Aries moon, Scorpio rising)
The zodiac sign under which someone was born represents a particular approach to life which is broadly shared with everyone born under that sign – although in some cases it can be hidden by the rising sign mask. In astrology, this is called the sun-sign. How your characters' drives are expressed and how much they share themselves with others is shown by the sun-sign. Some signs are introverted, shy and retiring, others are extravert, full on and unstoppable. Certain sun-signs initiate, or respond, others react; some live in the inner world of the imagination, others in the external world of action. There are signs that are uninhibited exhibitionists whilst others take a great deal of coaxing to reveal their desires.
Choose a birthday for your characters and as a writer you instantly know their personality, their secret hopes and dreams, their strengths and weaknesses, their internal struggles, their vocabulary, how they look, the mask they put on to meet the world, and how they act in friendship or adversity and in love. Each sign has a particular body language and distinctive appearance. To see a typical Aries take a look, for instance, at William Bell Scott's painting of the poetic writer Algernon Swinburne with his wayward curly auburn hair and slanting eyebrows above hypnotic eyes, or the caricature of him by 'Ape' in Vanity Fair (both images are on Wikipedia). He had the sun and moon in heroic Aries and romantic, escapist Pisces rising explains the mesmeric eyes.
When facing opposition, plucky Aries squares up ready to do battle, fists metaphorically – or literally – raised; whilst the much-slower-to-anger Taurus head goes down, like a bull about to charge. When the Taurus foot starts pawing the ground, sensible signs withdraw – fast. Light on the feet, Gemini dances around and lets fly a string of words, but Cancer folds both arms over the solar plexus and scuttles sideways avoiding head-on confrontation while Libra takes on an appeasing stance. Leo quells rebellion with a regal look, Scorpio with a penetrating stare. That Aries person will have emphatic eyebrows that meet in the middle, the Taurus a large head set on a strong neck above wide shoulders and tapering legs, the bright-eyed Gemini is darting, bird-like; while the Cancer face resembles the moon and Libra looks good at any time. But how your character looks is not only a product of the sun-sign, it can be masked by another factor, the rising-sign, which we'll come to in a moment.
Adding complexity
People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character. Ralph Waldo Emerson (Gemini sun, Leo moon, Libra rising)
The beauty of astro-characterisation is that you add in variables to give an appearance and approach to the world that can mask the innate sun-sign traits, creating conflicts and complexities, leaving more to discover and intrigue. Each zodiac entry has a compatibility chart at the end. This not only tells you which signs interact well or clash with the sign you have chosen for your character but it also gives you subtle complexities and permutations through the inclusion in your protagonist of traits from two more zodiac signs creating internal tensions and dilemmas.
This complex layering can answer one of the most perplexing relationship questions there is: why did two characters get together in the first place? Two people who outwardly seem to have nothing in common are drawn to each other like magnets. They will say that, deep down, they recognised each other. Very often this is because the sun and moon signs intertwine and are compatible, or they share the same moon sign. A guy will have, say, the sun in Aries and a woman the moon. At a very deep level they are incredibly similar and share some basic characteristics. They literally each see the other reflected back as though in a mirror and feel 'I've come home'. But this is only on one level. There are also another sun and moon – or sun and sun – placement and two rising signs to take into account. Add in clashing sign traits and you soon begin to realise why 'home' doesn't always feel as comfortable as it might. The facets of the zodiac create attractions, conflicts and tensions within the pair.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Astro-characters by Judy Hall. Copyright © 2013 Judy Hall. Excerpted by permission of John Hunt Publishing Ltd..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction: Convincing characters.................... 1
Chapter 1: How to use this book: Celestial archetypes;
Astro-personalities; The zodiac profiles; What a sun-sign tells you;
Adding complexity; Meeting the shadow; Creating your astro-character....... 6
Chapter 2: Will an example help? Writing from life; Reader, he married
her; Who dun what? That is the question.................... 22
Chapter 3: Getting started.................... 44
Chapter 4: Interview your character.................... 47
Chapter 5 P.S. Zodiac sex style.................... 50
Chapter 6: Aries: the rambunctious Ram.................... 54
Chapter 7: Taurus: the sybaritic Bull.................... 63
Chapter 8: Gemini: the talkative Twins.................... 73
Chapter 9: Cancer: the canny Crab.................... 83
Chapter 10: Leo: the flamboyant Lion.................... 94
Chapter 11: Virgo: the fastidious Corn Maiden.................... 104
Chapter 12: Libra: the amorous Scales.................... 114
Chapter 13: Scorpio: the touchy Scorpion.................... 124
Chapter 14: Sagittarius: the insouciant Archer.................... 134
Chapter 15: Capricorn: the conservative Goat.................... 143
Chapter 15: Aquarius: the rebellious Water Bearer.................... 153
Chapter 17: Pisces: the slippery Fishes.................... 163
Further reading and acknowledgements.................... 174
About the Author.................... 175