Writing advice is everywhere. You can’t turn a corner without tripping over another ‘amazing’ piece of advice that will make you a better/more successful writer. There is general advice that works for a lot of people, it’s true. The problem comes in the assumption that if it works for a successful author, or if it works for a lot of people in general, then why wouldn’t it work for you? However, you don’t write exactly like anyone else in the world, and likewise, no writing advice works for everyone in every situation.

Now you may be thinking: “Okay, so how do I know what writing advice to take?” That, of course, is where your writer’s intuition comes in. With a little bit of awareness about your writing process, and some trial and error, you will be able to tell if any given piece of writing advice is helpful or potentially harmful to your process.

Let’s look at the common, oft-repeated bit of writing advice: “Write every day.”

Now why would this writing advice be helpful? Well, writing every day gives you consistency in your schedule, it helps you build a habit of writing, and it means you’re making progress with your WIP every day. All great things. And for some people, this advice works well, such as people who need that looming expectation of writing *every day* so they don’t put off their writing indefinitely.

I, myself, do need structure, but Fridays are my one full day of work topped off with date night with my husband. Could I make time to write? Of course. But I chose to allow myself that day off from writing. Sometimes I write anyway, but very often I don’t. For me, the advice to write every day is good, but with a slight tweak in order to work with how my life is structured.

For certain people, however, the advice to write every day simply does not work. Perhaps they only have time to write on the weekends, or maybe that’s just when they’re the most productive. Perhaps they work best in face of a looming deadline, or are the type of person who pours out 5k words in a day and then needs a few days off to recharge. For some writers, trying to write every day is not helpful and may actually cause stress or a decrease in productivity. In this case, the advice should be discarded.

So how helpful is this particular advice for you? Well I can’t answer that, but your writer’s intuition can! The easiest way to find out if a piece of writing advice will work for you is to try it. In this case, try writing every day for a minimum of two weeks, long enough that you get over the awkwardness of the new process, so you can see how it actually works. This may sound like we are simply taking the advice, but the important bit is that after each writing session, you want to evaluate how the writing session went. How distracted were you? How productive? Was it a struggle at first that eventually began to feel comfortable, or was it stressful every day?  And most importantly, how are these answers different from how your writing normally progresses?

After two weeks, look back at your notes on your experience with the piece of writing advice. Consider whether it helped you or not. If it did, then keep it up. If it didn’t help, then pass on it. And if you’re not sure, then try it a bit more. There is no hard and fast rule on how long this process will take. You want to give any writing advice a fair try, but it is also important to evaluate how it’s working for you at regular intervals. I evaluate how my writing is going every week or two so I can shift as needed. It’s possible that a piece of advice that has worked for you in the past will stop working with a new project or circumstances, or vice versa.

As you try more advice, your writer’s intuition will grow and evolve. It will take less time for you to know whether a certain piece of writing advice is going to work for you or not. That advice my mentor gave to me? I knew right away, because I had tried something similar before and knew it didn’t work for me. The important thing is to keep trying new things in your writing, so you build a process that makes you the most productive you can be in a way that works with you and your schedule. It will take a bit of work, but it will be worth it.

Laura Highcove has a degree in computer science, which is obviously why she is a fantasy writer. She is influenced by anime, video games, table-top gaming, programming, horses, and Norse mythology in no particular order. She currently lives in beautiful Blacksburg, Virginia with her computer, two cats, and husband. Her psychic abilities have not yet developed, but she remains hopeful. If you’d like to learn more about her, head over to her website and sign up for her newsletter (and get a free short story) here.

The post How Your Writer’s Intuition Knows Which Advice Works for You appeared first on DIY MFA.

I want to tell you a secret about my own experience with this exercise. When I first started, I had a grand plan of taking my daily data and creating a beautiful graph in Excel that would reveal the secret inner workings of my mind. What actually happened is that, about a month in, I realized I didn’t need the beautiful graph. While the data was important for giving my routine structure and to help my comparison from day to day, the most important thing I got out of it was the general awareness of myself.

As I progressed with this daily routine, I found it easier to apply it to my writing even though I was not tracking anything specific from day to day. Thanks to my daily habit I became aware enough that I finally noticed what my Writer’s Intuition was telling me: I was happier writing in the mornings, I need to have no distractions when I’m writing new words, and I love revision. I had always “known” these things, but now I could actively work toward writing in the situations and places that helped me be the most productive. That is when my Writer’s Intuition really took off because I could more easily separate problems with writing from problems with myself.

Let’s discuss how to use your Writer’s Intuition to help when you get stuck in your writing…

Figure out where the problem is.

Most often when I get stuck writing, I ask myself one simple question first: What is the exact problem keeping the story from moving forward? A lot of people know there’s a problem but aren’t able to narrow it down any further. “There is a problem” doesn’t really give you much direction. So read over the section, the page, or the story again and this time listen to what your Writer’s Intuition is trying to tell you. Try for a definition such as, “The character isn’t doing what I want here,” “There’s no way to get them out of this situation” or “This plot point doesn’t make any sense because of this other thing.”

At first you might have trouble defining the problem, but again, the more mistakes you make and the more times you get stuck, the better your Writer’s Intuition will get at telling you where the problem is. That being said, your brain knows when it can’t focus on writing, but it doesn’t always tell you in an easy-to-understand way. Sometimes you might get stuck on your story for a reason that has nothing to do with the story.

If I can’t come up with a specific problem with the story, then my Writer’s Intuition might be telling me the problem isn’t with the story. That means the stuck spot might actually be me. Maybe I’m worried about something at work, perhaps I didn’t get enough sleep the night before, or today could just be a self-care day due to my depression. If this is the case, then I take a step back from my story to take care of my own needs so I can come back when I’m at my best.

When you have identified the stuck spot in your story, even if you’re not 100% sure you have it right, it’s time to…

Dive into your toolbox

Sort through all the writing skills and exercises you have accrued over your writing time. I’m not going to go into any specifics here, since that’s not what this article is about, but think of the ways you have dealt with this problem in the past. If you haven’t dealt with this specific issue before, or if what you’ve tried isn’t working to fix the problem, then head to the Internet. Ask your writer friends if they have suggestions, search for the problem and see what kind of articles come up, or take a writing course based around the problem you’re having.

You will make mistakes. You might think you’re having trouble writing because you’re worried about your spouse’s job, but it’s really a plot problem. You think a character has a motivational issue, but it’s really that your well is empty and you need to recharge. Your Writer’s Intuition can just be wrong, because you can’t know everything. My advice to you is…get used to being wrong. It happens to everyone. But don’t let that discourage you from trying! Making mistakes is how humans learn; it’s how we hone our skills and develop our Writer’s Intuition. Plus, if everything went perfectly all the time, that would make for a pretty boring story.

And always remember to…

Trust your Writer’s Intuition

Writing a book is a marathon, not a sprint. Don’t think you have to solve a problem right away if it’s giving you trouble. If you can’t define the problem, or if you try a few things and it still hasn’t helped, then it’s fine to take a step back. Go take a walk, do the laundry, play with a pet, read a book. Your Writer’s Intuition will continue working on the problem subconsciously, because that’s just what it does.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that it always comes up with the perfect fix. Your Writer’s Intuition is a compilation of all of your experiences. If you’re continually pushing yourself to be a better writer, you’re going to run into problems you’ve never had before. Don’t let these stop you. Sometimes I have problems in my story that I simply don’t have the skill to fix yet. In that case, all you can do is keep going, and keep learning, and work on fixing it in the next draft. Your Writer’s Intuition will continue to expand and grow.

Laura Highcove has a degree in computer science, which is obviously why she is a fantasy writer. She is influenced by anime, video games, table-top gaming, programming, horses, and Norse mythology in no particular order. She currently lives in beautiful Blacksburg, Virginia with her computer, two cats, and husband. Her psychic abilities have not yet developed, but she remains hopeful. If you’d like to learn more about her, head over to her website and sign up for her newsletter (and get a free short story) here.

The post Using Your Writer’s Intuition Intentionally appeared first on DIY MFA.

A few years ago, I realized that I needed to get a better handle on my depressive episodes. I knew they followed my period in some fashion, but for the most part I would be miserable for several days until I realized my period was coming, and then I would start actively managing my depression. This affected my writing process as well, as my depression often caused me to think there was a problem with my current project, when it was really my emotional state. To increase my self-awareness, I created a simple exercise I called Laura’s Morning Routine.

Laura’s Morning Routine

Every morning for a year, I sat down and did two things:

I closed my eyes and I took stock of how I was feeling at that moment. 

It was simply time for me to stop what I was doing and focus on how I was being. I generally spent no more than five minutes. At the beginning it felt a little weird because I had no experience with how I normally felt, and thus I had no idea what I was supposed to be feeling.

As time went on, I began to notice when things were off my baseline. Since I did this exercise at the same time and place each morning, I cut down on variables. I began to understand how I normally felt so I could more easily tell when things were different.

I rated the previous day on a scale of 1 to 5 in three categories: body, mind, and spirit.

• Body: Rated based on how much pain I was in that day. One was pain that got in the way of my day; three was how I normally feel (no pain); and five was amazing.
• Mind: Rated based on how much chatter or negative self-talk my mind generated that day. One was a near constant racket; three was normal (not none, but manageable); five was days when I was very positive, with a lot of gratitude and/or lots of great story ideas.
• Spirit: Rated on how much social anxiety I was dealing with. One was for days I was withdrawn and did everything to avoid attention; three was normal (chatting with people when they were around); four was days when I sought out interaction with people; and five was days when I would sing out loud with my music. 

Making Your Exercise

1. Set aside a time to do the exercise and try and make it happen in the same place and at the same time as often as possible. Make sure this time works for you most days, if not every day. It could be in bed before you get up. You may even already have a notepad by your bed for nightly story ideas. If you have a daily writing habit, you could do the exercise before or after your session. It could be during your lunch break at work or before/after your commute home. The whole idea is to make a habit out of being aware.
2. Decide which aspects you want to be more aware of. They can be anything. How productive you are, how happy you are, how much time you spent with your family/friends. I have only two suggestions. First, don’t list too many things, just find the ones you think will be the most important; second, have at least one that focuses on how you are as opposed to what you’re doing.
3. Define your rating system. You can rate yourself however you want. You can have a scale from 1 to 100. You can rate yourself in .5 increments. You can rate yourself using fruits. Just make sure you know what your rating means and that you have that definition in your mind for comparison. It can also help you to hold yourself accountable, because you need to write down your result each day.

Do Your Exercise

Once you’ve picked your time, make sure you sit down each day and record your results. You can do it in a favorite notebook or in a notepad app on your phone. I would encourage you to dedicate yourself to doing this for at least two weeks. A month would be better. It doesn’t take long each day, so it should be a priority. 

And just remember, you will not see an immediate result. I did this exercise regularly for a whole year. I’m not saying I never missed a day, but I didn’t let myself miss many. Raising your awareness is a lifelong pursuit, but then so is growing as a writer, so these things go hand in hand. I don’t want you to try these techniques for a week or two and then think something is wrong when you’re not magically aware. It takes a bit of dedication, but the results will be worth it.

Also, Resist the Urge to Analyze

You may start thinking “I’m gathering all this data. What am I supposed to do with it? I should analyze it somehow. What if I get a ton of banana days and no limes? What does that mean!?” For now, just tell yourself you’re gathering data and leave it at that. The human brain wants to find patterns, it wants to know why. If you do this long enough, you will notice those patterns. That’s fine, just don’t get sidetracked with worrying about what it all means.

And if you begin wondering what this has to do with writing, sometimes it’s difficult to separate what is related to yourself, your life, or your writing. This exercise will help you to learn where your own personal baseline is. In my next post I’m going to talk about what you can do with the data you collect and how you can shift this exercise to help you become more aware in any facet of your life. And yes, that includes your writing.

Laura Highcove has a degree in computer science, which is obviously why she is a fantasy writer. She is influenced by anime, video games, table-top gaming, programming, horses, and Norse mythology in no particular order. She currently lives in beautiful Blacksburg, Virginia with her computer, two cats, and husband. Her psychic abilities have not yet developed, but she remains hopeful. If you’d like to learn more about her, head over to her website and sign up for her newsletter (and get a free short story) here.

The post How to Develop Awareness to Harness Your Writer’s Intuition appeared first on DIY MFA.

I wrote a book one time that contained a character whom I loved. I enjoyed how they interacted with the other characters, how they were developing as a character, and the mystery they added to the plot. At the same time I had this nagging feeling that they didn’t quite belong.

For months I convinced myself that I just needed to write more of the story and then their purpose would become clear. But that feeling didn’t go away, and I finally had to admit that the character didn’t belong in that book. So began the arduous task of removing them. Once they were gone, the story came together neatly and far more solidly, and I found myself wishing I had listened to my writer’s intuition from the beginning.

So What is Writer’s Intuition?

Writer’s intuition is an (often) unconscious knowledge that comes from experience. Many people have given many names to the same concept: a gut feeling, reading the room, thin slicing, or instinct. All of these things refer to the way the brain takes in information, checks it against what you already know, and gives you a conclusion faster and more completely than you can consciously.

With my superfluous character above, I could give you a whole slew of reasons they needed to be taken out of the book, as well as the same number of reasons to leave them in. I don’t know *how* my writer’s intuition knew the story would be better without them, but somehow I did know.

This is why you’ll often hear authors talk about how they fixed a broken plot or developed a character’s arc, yet when asked how they knew what changes to make, they can’t give a complete answer. The author knows because their writer’s intuition is taking all of their past experience and drawing a conclusion, and they’ve learned how to listen. If they do try to explain the reasons, it’s often impossible because it’s part of a huge wealth of experience only they have.

How Does One Get Writer’s Intuition?

The great thing is, you already have it. Just by being alive, existing in the world, and especially by reading, writing, and ingesting stories, you have your intuition about how stories, characters, and plots work. Which is good, because writer’s intuition is impossible to teach.

I know what you’re thinking. “If you can’t teach intuition, then what is this post for?” That is because while I can’t teach you writer’s intuition, I *can* show you how to teach yourself to develop it further and more intentionally.

What do you Mean ‘Teach Myself’?

With most skills and techniques, you follow a set of steps that will give you a distinct result. Unfortunately, (and fortunately) writer’s intuition is a collection of all of your experiences, even those not related to writing or stories. No one can teach you their writer’s intuition because they can’t give you their experiences. This is the same reason why no two people, even with the same idea, could possibly ever write the same book.

The most important thing for developing your writer’s intuition is becoming more consciously aware of it. Remember when I said your mind is drawing a whole bunch of conclusions subconsciously? It’s always doing that, and an important step in learning to develop your writer’s intuition is by becoming aware of what your brain is doing and why. And you can do that by learning to be more aware, or more mindful of yourself, and that is something that I can teach you.

Practicing Mindfulness

The first and most important step is to slow down and begin to pay attention to certain things about how you write. When you’re paying attention you can notice things that you simply took for granted or thought were just coincidence. I’m going to help by sharing with you some exercises and techniques you can practice in order to develop your mindfulness and thus become aware of your writer’s intuition. The more aware of your writer’s intuition you are, the easier you can tap into it when you need it, instead of writing half a book before realizing you really should’ve taken that character out ages ago.

Even by just reading this article you can be more aware of what your mind is telling you with regards to your writing. For now, see how that feels, but don’t focus on it too much. If it gets in the way of your writing, then it’s not doing its job. My next article will introduce some exercises so you can begin to develop your writer’s intuition more intentionally.

Share an experience you’ve had with your writer’s intuition, whether you knew what it was at the time or not.

Laura Highcove has a degree in computer science, which is obviously why she is a fantasy writer. She is influenced by anime, video games, table-top gaming, programming, horses, and Norse mythology in no particular order. She currently lives in beautiful Blacksburg, Virginia with her computer, two cats, and husband. Her psychic abilities have not yet developed, but she remains hopeful. If you’d like to learn more about her, head over to her website and sign up for her newsletter (and get a free short story) here.

The post An Introduction to Writer’s Intuition appeared first on DIY MFA.

I also hope you’ve enjoyed this miniseries on the tarot for writers so far. To recap, in Part 1, I offered a brief introduction to the tarot, in Part 2, I reviewed five books on the tarot for writers, and now, in part 3, I’m going to create an outline for a fantasy story using the tarot.

A Note on Methodology

As we covered last column, there are many different ways the tarot can be used to help build or discover a story and you could probably come up with even more ideas on your own, given time, practice, and your individual writing process. To keep things simple, I’ve elected to use a Hero’s Journey spread, as this will be a mythic structure that many of you will be familiar with.

I first selected a random card for my protagonist and my antagonist from the court cards of the minor arcana after shuffling and cutting these 16 cards. Then, using these cards as my focus, I shuffled, cut, and drew 12 cards from the remaining full deck (major and minor arcana), one for each stage of the Hero’s Journey. I read each of the cards intuitively at first, and then looked up the standard meaning, to see if it would provide further insight into the stage.

If I got stuck at any point, I would have pulled what I’m going to call a “clarifying card.” The clarifying card would have been read in tandem with the card pulled for the stage, to see if the deeper reading could pull me past the road bump. As you’ll see, however, my random drawing of the cards proved to be eerily on point and no clarifying cards were needed.

Though I have a few decks—my interest in tarot predates my discovery of it as a mythic storytelling tool—I chose to use the traditional Rider-Waite-Smith. It’s the most recognizable of the tarot decks.

Protagonist

The card I pulled for my protagonist was the page of pentacles. Saara is the only daughter of a wealthy landowning family. Though it is not traditional for a young woman to inherit her family’s wealth, Saara’s parents want to keep their wealth in the family and have been educating her to take over management of their estates, including leading their militia. Though there is still pressure for Saara to marry and have children to carry on the family line, Saara does not want to marry. Saara is also bonded to the land as her grandmother was before her and has been training with her grandmother to become a fenwoman, a true lady of the land.

Antagonist

The card I pulled for my antagonist was the knight of wands. Miko is the son of a neighboring earl, an experienced warrior who has been exploring and raiding foreign lands for years. His parents have been trying to negotiate his marriage to Saara. They want Miko to take control of Saara’s family lands, a goal Miko shares.

The Ordinary World

The first card I picked, interestingly enough, was the Fool. Saara is naïve. She has no idea what life has in store for her. She believes that she can do it all, manage the family estates, lead their militia, and become fenwoman. She doesn’t know what she’ll have to sacrifice to truly serve and protect her people.

The event that disturbs Saara’s ordinary world? Miko’s family is pressing his suit and backing it with the threat of their superior military strength. If Saara’s parents don’t agree to the match, Miko might take Saara and her family’s lands by force.

The Call to Adventure

The nine of swords shows a person sitting up in bed with their hands covering their face. Nine swords hang overhead. My immediate thought: this is a nightmare. Saara’s nightmare would be to lose her autonomy, her family, and her ability to serve and protect the people who live on her family’s lands.

How does this translate into a call to adventure? Saara has to figure out a way to prevent Miko and his family from taking everything she holds dear. But how does that look? Will she have to pretend to accept Miko’s suit to buy some time while she figures out another solution? One of the provided meanings of the card is a wake-up call. Saara’s certainly getting that.

The card was also inverted, which could mean remaining calm in the face of disaster, and this would fit as well, because Saara can’t let on that this situation scares her to death.

The Refusal

The three of swords depicts a heart pierced by three swords. Saara is faced with an impossible choice. Accept Miko’s overtures and surrender everything into his control, try to fight him and probably end up losing everything, anyway (she may be naïve, but Saara’s not stupid—she knows her little militia is no match for Miko’s hardened warriors). Even if she manages to pull off a temporary deception, Saara doesn’t know how she could possibly outmaneuver Miko and his family. She runs to her grandmother.

This card was also inverted, which can mean blessings in disguise. And that leads us directly into the next stage of the Hero’s Journey.

The Mentor

The seven of pentacles shows a gardener tending a plant which bears the seven pentacles and represents a successful harvest. This card was also inverted—there are a lot of those in this reading—meaning a failed harvest.

Saara’s grandmother, Mummu Liisa, is the fenwoman of the family and lady of the land. Saara has not progressed in her training sufficiently for the skills of a fenwoman to serve her in her current dilemma. Mummu Liisa will do what she can to protect the land and its people, but she is not a shield matron and she doesn’t have the authority to intervene in political matters. She recommends Saara seek out and petition Luonnotar, the spirit of nature. This will, of course, involve a series of trials.

Crossing the Threshold

The ace of swords depicts a hand emerging from the clouds, holding a sword. A crown hovers over the tip of the blade and six motes of light or Yods—signifying the divine—surround the bottom. This card represents divine inspiration or fertile thinking. Inverted, as this card is, it can represent a broken engagement for a woman.

Saara departs to seek out Luonnotar, telling her parents and Miko’s family that she is going to ask for the spirit’s divine blessing on the union. This does not break the engagement, per se, but delays the marriage for a time.

Tests, Enemies, Allies

The Moon is a card that focuses on the power and guidance of intuition. When inverted, as it is here, it represents deception, secrets, and hidden enemies.

Saara sets off on her quest with her companion, Maija. Miko, not trusting Saara, sends his younger brothers Arvo and Juha to follow her in secret. On her search for Luonnotar, Saara will complete three tasks that will rely on her intuitive strengths as a novice fenwoman in a series of try/fail cycles.

Approach to the Inmost Cave

For the next stage of the Hero’s Journey, I drew the five of pentacles. On it, a woman in a ragged cloak leads a man with crutches past the stained-glass window of a church in the middle of a snowfall. This card denotes poverty. The inverted five of pentacles only exchanges material difficulties for relationship difficulties.

The quest has gone on longer than Saara thought and she and Maija are almost out of food and money. Saara wants to push on, counting on Luonnotar’s generosity. They only have the third task left to complete, but Maija has been injured and wants to return home. She accuses Saara of being selfish.

The Ordeal

Judgement is a card symbolizing transformation. Though the image is one depicting “judgement day” the underlying message is one of forgiveness and release. Inverted, the card speaks to stagnation and the inability to move on. In the Hero’s Journey, the ordeal is the midpoint of the novel, the mirror moment, the point at which the protagonist learns something important about themselves, and moves from reaction to action, heading toward the climax.

Saara completes the third task alone, having given Maija what little they had left and sending her home. She comes close to failing, is gravely injured, but she ultimately succeeds and meets with Luonnotar. When she asks her boon of the spirit, however, Arvo and Juha reveal themselves, her deception of their brother Miko, and they demand that Saara be punished. Luonnotar instead sets Saara one final, terrible test. If Saara succeeds, her boon will be granted. If she fails, Luonnotar will punish her, as Arvo and Juha have asked.

The Reward

The ten of cups shows a family, the parents with one arm around each other and the other raised to the sky. Two children dance nearby. Overhead the ten cups form a rainbow. The card fits this stage of the Hero’s Journey perfectly. Happiness. Peace. Contentment. It would be a reward, except the card was inverted, which in this case inverts the interpretation literally.

Saara’s reward is twofold. The first is that she’s learned, by completing the third task herself, that she is a more capable fenwoman than she thought. But now she must complete Luonnotar’s final challenge and, for all she’s learned, Saara doubts she can do it. The second reward is time. The challenge is in a distant land and Saara needs to recover from her injury.

The Road Back

A stonemason works on a cathedral on the three of pentacles card. Two clergy stand nearby, holding the blueprints. The three of pentacles denotes skill, craft, and artistry, but the inverted card means mediocrity and weakness.

It is a time of weakness for Saara as she recovers and hones her skills as a fenwoman (cue magical montage here). Arvo and Juha are again following her, but they are no longer hidden and harass her openly. Maija finds her way back to Saara. She’s sorry she left. She knows that Saara’s quest is about more than avoiding an unwanted marriage. She was just wounded and tired and hungry. The two friends reconcile as they travel to the final challenge.

Resurrection

The nine of pentacles card shows a lady hawking. The pentacles are scattered through the surrounding grape vines. This is a card meaning prosperity and success, gaining an inheritance, or comfort and pleasure. And this one wasn’t inverted!

At the final challenge—I don’t know what it is, this is just an initial outline—Saara digs deep and comes into her own power even as Mummu Liisa dies protecting their ancestral home from Miko and his warriors. Saara is now the new lady of the land. She cannot marry. Nor can she manage the family estates or lead the militia. This is Luonnotar’s boon: the clarity of purpose gained through this final challenge.

Return with the Elixir

And again, in what might be the coolest coincidence, I picked the Magician as my twelfth card. The Magician denotes power and mastery.

Saara and Maija return home to pay their respects to Mummu Liisa. Saara assumes her new role, healing the land and her people alike. Maija remains with her as Saara’s friend and handmaiden. Miko has been stripped of wealth and rank and banished for causing the death of a fenwoman. Arvo and Juha are dismayed by the change in their family’s fortunes.

It’s Your Turn

I’ll be honest. This freaked me out. I shuffled and cut and picked random cards. I didn’t turn them over until I started to write this outline. But the outline kind of wrote itself. There were a lot of inverted cards and a lot of pentacles, but that just spoke to theme—which would be another column.

This is just a basic outline and there would be more work involved in making it into the functional basis of a story (what is Saara’s wound, her want/need, what lie does she believe in the beginning and what is the truth she comes to understand by the end?). But I hope you can see the potential in the cards as a way to unlock your intuitive powers as a writer.

If you’re looking for a different way to develop an idea into an outline, try the tarot. I’d love to know if your results were as surprising as mine.

Until next time, keep speculating, and see where it leads you!

Melanie Marttila creates worlds from whole cloth. She’s a dreamsinger, an ink alchemist, and an unabashed learning mutt. Her speculative short fiction has appeared in Bastion Science Fiction Magazine, On Spec Magazine, and Sudbury Ink. She lives and writes in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, where she spends her days working as a corporate trainer. She blogs at https://www.melaniemarttila.ca and you can find her on Facebook and Twitter.

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