Well, I don't usually do this, but I looked through and my main character is an Aries.

And one of my others is an Aquarius. Thanks for the link!

Astrology in all its accoutrements is one of my for-fun hobbies, to the point where I think sketching out star charts and defining squares and oppositions and sextiles is more fun than just about anything. XD I have a depressingly unfinished site for maximum astrology lulz, even (and I should really get around to wrapping that up one of these days).

When I create a character, I always have a brief personality concept in mind. With that, I can narrow down a birthdate, and from there I can go into an abbreviated chart that will give me a lot of fun personality hooks for later. For example, one of my characters is a genuinely sweet, sociable girl who loves people, but has an undercurrent of insecurity -- she's a Sagittarius with a Cancer moon and Pisces Ascendant, which means she'll party all night or until you need a hug, whichever comes first.

It's certainly not necessary for everyone, and I know that only someone COMPLETELY INSANE can find it as much fun as I do. XD

I always give my characters a sunsign and work their personalities into those associated traits.

I don't read or believe in horoscopes, but I do follow astrology and the moon cycles. I identify as a witch, so I think it's pretty important. ;)

Nope. Sometimes I might look at them for myself, or for characters, but I always just scoff at them and leave. I kinda like the idea of stars telling future/stuff because God controls the stars and it'd be an awesome way of communication - but nuh. Usually if I do look up my characters' starsigns it's just to laugh at them for being so intensely wrong. Mwa ha ha ha.

Well. Most of them are self-fulfilling prophecies ... so I take them with a grain of salt. We do age our characters, though, so they have 'Earth equivalent' birthdays when I'll add a year to their ages in their profile.

I have looked at sunsigns in the past to see which ones seem to 'fit' and be in line with when I personally think they were born. XD

The irony of this is that one of my characters was 'born' on the same day that I signed up as another one of my characters. :3

Actually in my writing class it's suggested to use Eden's books to help out new writers flesh in a character. I can't remember the writer's first name...it was a woman, the cover was yellow...and Eden was her last name.

lol. Very hellpful I know, but it was a college level course.

I'm an astrology hobbyist, so it does come have some small bearing on my characters. I've never fashioned a character after a certain sign, but once I've written up their personality, I settle on their sun sign and give them an appropriate birthday. Although occasionally, once I've settled on the sun sign, it'll give me ideas of quirks or other smaller traits that I can attribute to the character.

Cal, I've never done it your way (the 'abbreviated chart'), but I might try it out- sounds like fun!

There's this Harry Potter astrology site (just type it into google), and since I mostly play on HP boards, I sometimes use it to decide my character's birthday based on their personality and what house I want them in. But that's about all.

Sometimes I wonder about that when creating my characters.
They tend to be Libras, because that is the persocality traits that I seem to favor, but every now and then I'll have an Ares.

Astrology, however, confuses me anymore. I grew up amongst people who made that as common as some people make going to church - but is Pluto still considered a planet? I just mean to say, that I thought offically they no longer considered it as such and so.. well, I just get very lost in all this. xD

I think, though, it's always a good idea to develop your characters as much as possible, even if you don't put to much stalk in things like the positions of the planets and the stars in relation to personality.

Taking into account the strength something as small as a Zodiac sign can withhold on a character, I proudly admit that I too have used them to help create characters. I myself have not completely followed them by the book but instead used them more as a guideline when sculpting the ‘character of my dreams’.

When I was just a beginning writer, I’d simply try and imagine the character in my head and write down the appearance without any depth behind it. Now knowing that a character is more than a simple picture or text-based description, I use more than astrological signs alone. I tend to feel particularly attached to my characters, almost like they’re apart of me in some ways. I’ve written articles with characters of different signs to say the least, but they always seem to lack that flair that some other characters seem to posses. Then, of course, you take a look at characters based off of my own sign (Aquarius) and you can feel the emotion flowing through my characters veins (I hope anyways).

Like Alice said before me, it’s good to develop your characters as much as possible. Heck, I fill out a five-page character questionnaire every time I make a new character! I’d rather read a ten-page long essay than a one sentence summary any day.

Always fun to give astrological signs to character. I think it makes the character seem a little more realistic, if only because I believe that peoples' personalities have a connection with what astrological sign they have. Even speaking from a personal point of view, I fit a lot of the characteristics of my own sign.

That being said, I think it's more fun just to play the character and see what happens. I even once made a well reknown character for one board, then decided to check his astrological sign for fun about half way through the time I spent playing him. Creepy as it is, the two synched perfectly. Eerie =P