Lately, I’ve noticed a lot of different posts on Facebook
about various personality traits and the Zodiac sign they were supposed to show
under, and I recalled talking to several friends about creating characters and
some of them mentioned using the signs of the Zodiac as part of it.
Personally, I’ve only ever read those deals for a good
laugh, because I have never found one that described my personality to a T.
Every single one I’ve ever read either sort of but not quite described Konnie,
or sort of but not quite described me, or was just plain so ambiguous it sort
of but not quite described both of us. And our mother was a Cancer too. Add her
into the equation and those things never jibed with reality.
And as far as creating characters go, I don’t often even
come up with a birthday for any character in my stories except when that birthday
plays a vital role in the character’s personality and or the story. In fact,
there’s only once when I took the time to devise exact birthday’s for more than
one character in a story and that was because the story covered most of a year,
and thereby had to have some birthdays during that time. Additionally, if there
were, those birthdays would have some impact on the events in the story.
Then of course, there’s the fact that the story in question
has since morphed into a series, and yes I have lots of character birthdays,
because those birthdays could impact any future story line.
Off the top of my head, I can only think of one other time
when I mention a character’s birthday, and I started that story the day before
said character’s birthday, so the event played a vital role in the story line.
However, when it isn’t vital to the story, I don’t make one
up. Why bother? I don’t need it and it doesn’t impact the character or the
story line.
Now the other day I found an article somewhere on the
internet, and I forget where, about what personality traits congregate to what
states. When I saw the headline, my first thought was, “Really?”
They took the time figure this out? Why?
Then I realized the information might be a fun fact to add
to a story sometime, so I read it, and I should have taken more notes, but I
kind of lost it when I got to the paragraph on introverts and extroverts.
You see, the article said introverts congregate in states that
include Idaho (where I live) and extroverts congregate in states that include
Nevada (where Konnie lives)!
Yeah, I laughed out loud. Found it very funny. Seems Konnie
and I are living in the wrong states, if you were to believe that article. But
I guess, if I’d bothered to save the article; I could have probably used it as
a topic of conversation in some story.
What do you think?
Happy writing everyone! J
