More on character creation

My lovely sister emailed me to say that people are more than their Sun Signs and so I should not be overly concerned. And she is right, but characters are not people with all their wonderful contradictions. Characters need to display types of behaviour that readers can identify with and empathize with. They do not have to be sympathetic but their behaviour should show some sort of logical progression.
Thus while a person may be a number of different influences and impulses, a character is more likely to display or follow a certain arc of behaviour. He or she will have a finite number of motivations whereas a living and breathing human being will often have an infinite number of motivations. The more important a character, the greater the likelihood of many contradictory motivations and impulses.
Anyway, I like to keep things simple and to think along the specific type mode, rather than doing a pick and mix.
Ultimately, I want the characters to reveal their inner selves once they have been put under extreme pressure. It is the choices they make under pressure which defines them. But there has to be a certain amount of internal logic, and the use of astology/ennegrams/Myers Briggs does give me insight into the why and the choices they might make.

In other news: my newsletter and contest went out yesterday. The contest closes on 21 May ( this is the date I should be getting a fireplace in my study) and if you have not signed up, but do so before then, I will send you out the latest newsletter. It also has a recipe for Eccles cakes. And Eccles cakes are far better when they are freshly made, or if they are store bought -- at least warm them up. They date from the 17th century and are a mixture of currants, raisins, cut peel and spices encased in puff pastry.
Anyway, it is back to the current wip and the heroine who is revealing herself slowly. I do worry in some ways that I know more about the hero except that each wip is different and places different demands on the writer.