Recognize & Write Full Characters with the Sun, Moon, and Rising Signs
Astrology is a reflective "imaginal" tool, NOT a way to create stereotypes and formulas. Thoroughly understanding the Big Three of Personality will help.
The Big Three
In the behavioral sciences, we think about what is genetic, like basic temperament, and what is learned. That’s where twin studies come in. It’s considered pretty close to 50% genetic and 50% learned.
In astrology, three signs matter above all others for a character: the sun, moon, and rising signs. Some parts genetic, some learned.
There are always categories in personality tests. For many tests, where you fit is only marginally reliable since some people change a lot in a lifetime.
THE SUN SIGN
The core temperament is the SUN SIGN. This is our cognition, our basic ways of processing the world. Most of that is genetic. Our families and friends know this person, sometimes better than we do.
If a character in a book, film, or TV show has most of the Sagittarius traits in abundance and they are strong and enduring throughout the story, think Sagittarius Sun.
For example (see the chart below), the fictional character Cormoron Strike is a Sagittarius, as confirmed by the author.
THE MOON SIGN
The inner world of the MOON SIGN is how we experience and process emotions. Most of this is human nature, of course, plus social experience. This is the inner character monologue or story point of view. No one knows the person we are inside unless we tell them. It’s too easy to misinterpret on the surface.
Does a character have some of the traits of a sign that is not the sun sign, but you only see those characteristics when you get to know them better?
Are those traits most evident in the inner emotional life? Do they mostly surface at emotional or high-intensity moments, or do they drive emotional choices? That is the moon sign.
In the case of Cormoron Strike, that sign is in Pisces and yes, the author chose that. He is perceptive and empathetic. He is motivated to help others find emotional closure. However, he is also prone to self-deception when it comes to his emotions and he can be secretive. We would not have so many books if Strike wasn’t secretive.
RISING SIGN (Ascendant)
The Rising Sign describes how a character presents and expresses themselves to the world, and what traits others may see first about them. It is our set of strategies. It is the mask we wear, but that does not mean it is false. It is our tool for interacting with the world.
In Vedic astrology, it is considered more important than the sun sign, since its math determines where everything else is in the chart. We don’t get to know every character well, so sometimes the rising sign is all we can guess based on the trope or role they play in the story.
Cormoron Strike has a Scorpio Rising, as the character states in Troubled Blood. When creating this example character chart, I chose a time that would make that work and also give him the Sun in the first house, as the character reported. His time was not given.*
Building Personality
You can see the sun, moon, and rising signs in the chart of Cormoron Strike — a character written by J.K. Rowling writing as Robert Galbraith — below.
I am not advocating that writers plan out all the signs in advance or decide them in order, or even decide them all. Sometimes only one is important—especially for side characters. As always, some writers plan in detail, and others discover things as they go along. You may suddenly realize your character has some Virgo qualities, and after that, when you are stuck for what would she do here questions, you may find thinking about the signs gives you an answer.
RELATED POST: Archetypes vs. Tropes vs. Stereotypes Knowing pop astrology is definitely not the same thing as understanding the depth of these archetypes.
Instinct and Intellect
Learning about the astrological archetypes is not meant as a way for writers to front-load a birth chart or even a sun sign. You don’t think of a story or a character and immediately draw up a chart for them. Well, you might if you were suddenly inspired, or you think that way.
The process is more likely to be instinctive, generative, and dynamic — a balance between applying a set of rules or characteristics and adding poetry.
The term “imaginal realm” has its immediate provenance in Islamic mysticism, but the idea itself — if truth be told, an archetype more than an idea […] is traditionally understood to be a boundary realm between two worlds, each structured according to its own governing conventions and unfolding according to its own causality. - Cynthia Bourgeault
The two imaginal “worlds” can be described in a spiritual, metaphysical way or simply as a way to enter the world of your story.
In this case, there is a conscious, analytical process in which knowledge of the astrological archetypes resides, and an instinctive way of accessing the inner world, where the archetypes reside in everyone. When you write using this knowledge and also have instinctive access to these archetypes, you reside in the imaginal space.
Enough Abstraction, How Does It Actually Work?
Cooper Howard | The Ghoul
You know you will be writing about tyranny so truth and freedom are core themes. You write “Sagittarius” on your white board.
You could start writing with a setting that screams the Sagittarius archetype, such as the Wild West of America, or Peru, the backcountry of Australia, or the Alaskan wilderness. For humans in that setting, freedom and the clarity of truth become essential. Then you begin developing the characters and plot.
Alternatively, you begin with a plot about the bad guys. Perhaps capitalism and government is now thoroughly married together. Then if freedom and truth were thoroughly thwarted (say that 3 times fast) and it was ALL about winning, you might kill everyone else off, so in the modern world, that means nuclear winter. BIG cockroaches, everyone know that. How would we survive? How would humanity mutate, if they did?
OR You begin by drafting a character.
In that nuclear winter, wild, wild west, you imagine a cowboy who values truth and freedom. “Cowgirl” feels too complicated and ambitious to tackle so you decide on “Cowboy.” That makes you think about Sagittarius, so you make him a former soldier willing to die for freedom. The archetype is solidifying.
SAGITTARIUS Sun AND Rising | He is what he appears to be.
Knowing the archetype, you make him a straight-shooter. He tells the truth, or he says nothing. If he doesn't want to answer your question, he doesn’t. He doesn’t deceptively imply things, and he does not lie to you. If you asked him to be deceptive for the cause of freedom, his choices would make the whole story a lot more interesting,
You want him to be complex, so he is also a cynical bastard because Sagittarius villains and anti-heros are always cynical—they aren’t usually motivated by power or ambition. Okay, so cynicism is an obvious choice for a Sagittarius sun sign anti-hero, but is there more beneath it?
You realize, after you have interacted with him on the page for a while, that he is raging inside because when his world fell apart (doesn't it always?), he felt powerless to take care of his family, and in this ex-soldier, that makes him want to take up the fight.
Maybe he had a chance to kill the bad guy, but he isn't a murderer, so he didn’t. But that led to a nuclear apocalypse.
SCORPIO Moon
Now he is on a mission to regain power and get revenge. Power and revenge? Hmm. Now you start thinking about Scorpio.
Is this plot starting to sound familiar?
Okay, now this character of Cooper Howard from Fallout is truly coming to life. He is clearly recognizable as a Sagittarius with Scorpio influences, but he is not a caricature.
We know him, but he can surprise us. We also know what we hope from him: that he will find freedom, truth, and true justice, and that he can stop being the cynical monster he has become. It's an interaction between the audience's questions and expectations for Sagittarius and Scorpio and the writer’s answers.
RELATED POST: FALLOUT Season 1 | The Four ♐♐️♐️♐️ Horsemen of the Apocalypse on Amazon Prime
The Resonant Feedback Loop of Writing with Archetypes in Mind
As you draft, characters find themselves in situations, and they react, and you begin to see the outline of the archetype. As more specific personality traits emerge, they "hook" onto an astrological sign.
Once a “thematic match” to a sign is recognized, the writer can lean into that sign’s core values to deepen the character’s motivations and flaws, effectively using astrology to backfill and expand the character’s complexity.
This entire process could be described as a resonant feedback loop, like improvising music. You hear a theme in your mind. Many instruments can play that music. The sign validates the character traits already found, while the writer’s broader knowledge of that sign suggests new, organic directions for the character’s growth.
We know that writers such as J.R.R. Tolkien and J.K. Rowling successfully employed these archetypes. I don’t know when Rowling (writing as Robert Galbraith) decided the main character in her mystery series, Cormoron Strike, was a Sagittarius, maybe from the very beginning. She knew he would be a big guy, a former soldier, a hunter, and commitment-phobic. It sounds to me like she knew early on, but she has confirmed his sign.
You can begin with the story’s overall story themes.
At some point, you may realize it’s lawful justice that matters more than freedom to at least one of your characters, and suddenly, you have shifted to thinking about Libra. Maybe there is another character with Libra tendencies.
That’s how this works; it’s a dance, and things change. Also, signs interact. It’s interesting to put Sagittarius and Libra together. Once you know the signs, you start thinking. Is my character lawful? Does she want to get the truth out there and let justice take care of itself, or will she deal out justice Wild West fashion? Is her name Lucy?
Everyone has every sign in their chart somewhere. There are 12 houses, one for each sign. When we look at a chart, we look at more than the Big Three.
For instance, in Cormoron’s chart, I note his Virgo midheaven and the trines between Scorpio and Pisces in the chart, and the many conjunctions.
I do not know whether Jo Rowling planned all that out, but I wouldn’t be surprised if choosing one birthdate or year over another was based on such detailed analysis. It makes sense that her character would know his own chart, given the fact that his mother was into both astrology and the tarot.
Rowling has stated that she does not believe in astrology as such, but does think it can be a tool to access intuition, like poetry. Maybe JKR didn’t say that. Maybe her other protagonist, Robin Ellacott, did. That is what Jung said about it, too.
Same. I agree.