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Since I already knew their personalities-- many of these characters earlier starred in their own books, I picked a birth month based on it fitting who they were-- not molding them around that birth month.
At one time I was really into astrology. Not the horoscope type where you decide if it's a good day to buy groceries based on the stars but the look at the Zodiac for how the average person born at your time will be impacted as to personality. I had a computer program (it didn't work when XP came along) as well as a lot of books on astrology. Using a combination of both, I did a lot of readings for friends, even my hairstylist. I always did it for free, of course, as I was no professional. I did though have an ability with characterizations due to the writing. I only asked one thing from them-- how close to you does it fall. You know most of the time it was 90% or better.
Did you know that you can use astrology to find possible past life scenarios where you might have lived in different periods of history based on your sign. The Elements of Reincarnation by A.T. Mann. Basically this astrologer came up with chart to show what lifetimes are impacting your actions today. It would not show all your lifetimes but the ones that relate to your tasks this go round
Then there are Karmic Astrology and Karmic Relationships by Martin Schulman which illustrate how a certain combination in your chart can indicate your relationships with others in your current lifetime.
What does that prove about anything? Nothing much as cycles might explain it as much as planetary influences. So one period of time influences you to be one way and another differently.
Personally I wasn't very good at astrology because it's about math. My scientist husband was better at it. Numbers are my weakness and astrology brought that out in spades.
Keep in mind for serious astrology, the time of birth can matter as much as the day. It impacts the moon in your sign, your ascendent and all the other planets that can have subtle or more important impact on who you are. If you really want to complicate it, this all can change through a person's lifetime with what some regarding as a progressive astrology chart.
Anyway what I did for this book did not get that complicated. I settled for year and day. I then had fun with one of my astrology books which has fun with the whole process. Born on A Rotten Day-- Illuminating and coping with the dark side of the Zodiac by Hazel Dixon-Cooper.
Just to give you an idea how she approached astrology, here is a traditional way to look at Aries-- Element-Fire; Quality-Cardinal; Polarity-Masculine.
Her approach was Aries-- Element-Selfish; Quality-Bossy; Polarity-Aggressive. You can see how that could help a lot more for fleshing out a character than the more traditional approach.
Interestingly when I decided to find a birth date and sign for each of my characters, I thought about what their personalities were like as I already knew them to be from having written those earlier books. Only two had the same sign. Each actually had a sign that fit them perfectly. I had a Libra, Leo, Sagittarius, Cancer, Aquarius, Capricorn, Scorpio, Gemini, and Taurus (no Aries, Pisces or Virgo). I guarantee you that when I wrote these characters, I had not thought of their astrology signs.
Does that mean the fact that they did fit their signs a bad thing-- meaning they are stereotyped? Well, if they are, then so are we all because we do have traits that can work for us or against us. Whether our differences come from astrology, it doesn't matter. The basic qualities that we have which do fit an astrology signs could be influenced by having a reading-- except I hadn't done a reading for myself until I was into my 50s and yet my first astrology reading hit pretty close to my weaknesses and strengths.
Doing an astrology chart for a character where you might be unsure of their personality could help you give them those little weaknesses and strengths that make them feel like someone you know-- maybe even are married to ;).
