Plus, as a writer, it’s pretty much your job to turn concepts into plots and an internal image or vision into a rich character or compelling narrative. This gives you a bit of a cheat code to tarot reading!

So let’s put this hidden skill you didn’t even know you had into action by using a custom tarot spread to develop the skeleton of a manuscript outline.

Tarot Cards for Storytellers 101

As a reminder, in Part 1, we learned that a tarot deck consists of 78 cards, each with its own meaning and symbolism. They’re often used for divination, but have many more uses, too! Including as a creative writing tool. You might use them to get quick inspiration when you’re feeling stuck, use mini spreads (aka a sequence of multiple cards in a row) to build a character, or research the meaning behind tarot cards to inspire a story or setting.

But you can also leverage complex spreads to get more specific and granular while plotting. Let’s take a look at a custom spread to see how the random fall of the cards can lead to creative ideas and interesting storylines.

Your DIVINE Spread

First, let’s review the spread I’ve designed just for you! This spread consists of six slots, each with its own purpose in building out your novel outline.

This spread uses six tarot cards, and is designed to help you determine the why, who, and what of your story. We’ll start with our why and who first, and with that taken care of, we’ll let the cards figure out what sort of chaos we’ll put them through in the beginning, middle, and end of their journey.

D – What does your protagonist desire? 

I – What is an important factor to your character’s identity? 

V – Who or what is the villain of the story? 

I – What is the inciting incident of this story? 

N – What causes the nadir, or the low point, for your protagonist? 

E – How does your protagonist change by the end? 

So let’s give our deck a little shuffle, and see what pops up! 

And in case you’re wondering, there’s no “right way” to shuffle tarot cards. It’s what feels right to you! I like to shuffle at least four times to really mix things up. If I’m feeling really crazy, I ask my cat to rub her head on my cards as my personal, fluffy muse.

I’ll be using The Star Child Tarot deck, which has stunning multimedia images and really reflects my own writing brand of mystical, contemporary fantasy. But you can use whatever tarot or oracle card deck you’d prefer.

Now let’s get divining.

DIVINE Plotting

Alright, the cards have been laid, and here’s what I got. Let’s pretend I’ll be using this spread to come up with the concept for my next contemporary fantasy novel.

Card 1: What does my protagonist desire?

Answer: Three of Cups.

The cupeth is fulleth! When I look at this card I get a sense of supreme, emotional and intuitive power. Waterfalls are running into cups, the moon is full, the sky is alight with stars and colorful galaxies. It all aligns directly to an ancient pyramid.

Translated to character desire? To me, it feels like an abundant, joyful life. My character wants to be happy, and surrounded by people that make her feel alive and aligned. Of course, we’re not going to make it easy for her. That wouldn’t be a fun novel at all.

Card 2: What is an important factor to my character’s identity?

Answer: Eight of Cups

A prettily dressed woman is surrounded by cups, looking out upon the beach as if waiting for her crew to show up.

My girl likes to party. She likes to be at the center of a crowd. She loves fashion and looking cute, and being told she’s cute. She is the consummate hostess. Perhaps she’s even built a brand around this? Maybe she’s an event planner. Whatever the case, she does not like to be alone, and has designed her life to avoid having to spend too much time navel-gazing.

Because she comes from a long line of psychics and mediums, and she’s seen how little indulging in that family trait has gotten them. She’s decided that being happy means being as normal as possible.

Card 3: Who or what is the villain of the story?

Answer: The Wheel of Fortune

The name of this card says it all for me.

Times they are a-changin’. I’m starting to get the feeling that my character is meant to be maturing out of her party-heavy twenty-something life as she enters her thirties, but has been very resistant to this maturation. Meanwhile, all her friends are getting married and having babies or moving to the suburbs, leaving her her least favorite thing: alone.

So the villain here is time itself, something that cannot be fought, only lived. And she’s been fighting the power of time and the messages hidden within it her entire life.

Card 4: What is the inciting incident of the story?

Answer: Page of Cups

The page of cups loosely holds a goblet. So immediately my head goes to “party.” Which is fitting!

I’m picturing this: it’s a work happy hour and my protagonist (let’s call her Miranda) has had a few too many glasses of Pinot Grigio. She drinks to drown out the visions she sometimes gets when she’s overstimulated. 

She’s at the point of being drunk where she thinks she is hilarious and bold, but really she’s embarrassing and stupid. She gets it on her mind to jump on the bar and show off her old dance team moves she learned in high school…and then she falls off. And then she gets kicked out of the bar in front of all her co-workers.

Miranda realizes that it’s time to grow up and learn how to control her powers. But where to even begin?

Card 5: What causes the nadir for your protagonist?

Answer: Akashic Records

The Akashic Records is an esoteric concept in which everything that has ever or will ever happen to us is recorded in a mystical book we can tap into via meditation and spiritual journeying.

This feels super out there. A moment in which Miranda is forced to reckon with her gift…or else. Perhaps she develops a new power that overwhelms her just when she thought she had a handle on her first one. And it overwhelms her to the point of passing out at work.

When Miranda comes to, she’s had a vision about the future of the company. Her boss, thinking Miranda is drunk on the job, fires her.

Card 6: How does your protagonist change by the end?

Answer: Five of Swords

A winged woman stands in the desert, hands outstretched. She is surrounded by swords, all at the ready but none in use. She is like a valkyrie, waiting for the call to battle.

Near the end of the story, Miranda finally convinces her boss that she wasn’t drunk. And that they need to listen to her or risk the company going under. She finally gets to use her clairvoyant power in public, and save the company and community she loves from certain ruin.

Miranda realizes that she’s been hiding from her real purpose her whole life. She’s finally ready to follow her destiny. Because she can’t be happy until she feels whole. And she can’t be whole until she embraces her powers and uses them for good.

Now It’s Your Turn

So there you have it: six cards, one story. We took Miranda from party girl to professional psychic…with a bit of tumult and heartbreak mixed in for good measure.

And now it’s your turn. Get your deck, give it a shuffle, and see what stories the tarot cards want YOU to tell.

Tell us in the comments: What kind of outline did your tarot cards create for your novel?

Ashley Christiano is a fantasy writer, experienced tarot reader, and professional astrologer. As The Novel Mystic, she combines the power of astrology, tarot, and creative writing to empower women, educate the Astro-curious, and inspire her own storytelling. 

You can find her on her website or follow her on Twitter or Instagram to learn more or get your own reading.

The post Tarot Cards for Storytellers, Part 2: From Tarot Spread to Novel Outline appeared first on DIY MFA.

Thirty minutes after sitting down, I wandered down that same hallway a different person, my cheeks stained with tears and my puffy eyes hidden behind sunglasses. The experience had been cathartic. I bought my own tarot deck, the classic and widely used Rider–Waite–Smith deck, and once I’d made it back home to NYC, I promptly got down to the business of learning what the heck tarot was and how I could use it. 

What Are Tarot Cards?

Like a standard card deck, a tarot deck is made up for four suits (cups, swords, pentacles, and wands), court cards (kings, queens, knights, and with an extra position for pages), and aces through tens. Unlike a standard card deck which contains 52 cards, a tarot deck consists of 78-cards. And it’s those final 22 cards, referred to as the Major Arcana, that make a tarot deck a tarot deck. 

Simply put, the Major Arcana tell a story in 22 chapters, starting with the Fool (our innocent protagonist), stumbling through a meet-cute (The Lovers), advancing through an inciting incident (The Wheel of Fortune), hitting rock bottom (The Tower), and finding closure (The World). 

How Are Tarot Cards Used?

Most people who have heard of tarot cards are aware that they’re typically used for divination. You might go to a fortune teller and have your cards read, or trust in your own intuition and read them for yourself. When you do a tarot reading, you or the medium will lay the cards down in a specific design. This is called a tarot spread. You can think of a spread as an outline or plot map. Each spot in the spread has its own purpose, and the way the cards fall will give meaning to that purpose. 

But for the skeptics out there, tarot cards can be for much more than divination. They can be used for reflection and mindfulness. For example, I draw a card every morning and journal about what it brings up for me, both at the beginning and end of the day. 

The more you use the cards, the more naturally their meanings will come to you…and the faster you’ll get at interpretation when you start using the cards for writing. 

How Can I Use Tarot Cards as a Writer?

Tarot cards are a great tool for writing for many reasons. They’ve helped me beat writer’s block, brainstorm new book ideas, get through a challenging chapter revision, add depth to characters, or even inspire full-length fantasy novels. 

I love that you can use tarot cards in a rapid-fire way to generate some creativity and inspiration (draw a card until it speaks to you!), or build out more complex spreads as a novel outline. 

Let’s take a more tactical look at how you might use tarot as a writing tool. 

First of all, it’s important to note that there are both positive and negative cards, which makes it possible to build a mix of highs and lows into a spread. I, for example, often have a hard time being “mean” to my characters. When I am not sure how to add tension into a scene, I might draw a tarot card and see what that sparks. If it features a rushing knight on horseback, maybe I need a change of pace or something to go to battle for. If it features a sad-looking person, maybe I need some big emotional moment. If I draw The Emperor, maybe an external institution is making life hard for my protagonist. 

The court cards (king, queen, knight, page) can also be great for coming up with ideas for side characters. For example, say you’re writing a RomCom and trying to give your main character’s best friend more dimensionality. You shuffle your court cards, draw one, and see what it inspires. Maybe you draw a king and decide your protagonist’s BFF is a buff dude she formerly dated. Think of the delicious tension that could create in your story! Or you draw a page, and the best friend brings a lovely sense of innocence and optimism that balances out your snarky character’s personality.

You can also use the tarot cards to design on-the-fly writing prompts. Draw one card and then give yourself 15 minutes to tell the story of that card. Or design mini-spreads and build a story from there. Here are a couple of two- or three-card examples you might adopt as a writing prompt: 

• Card 1 = Protagonist, Card 2 = Antagonist
• Card 1 = Goal, Card 2 = Challenge
• Card 1 = Inner World, Card 2 = Outer World
• Card 1 = Beginning, Card 2 = Middle, Card 3 = End
• Card 1 = Protagonist, Card 2 = Love Interest, Card 3 = Meet Cute

And lastly, you can design longer spreads if you’re looking to build the outline for a new novel. For example, you might turn The Hero’s Journey framework into a spread. You shuffle your deck, lay the cards down all in their proper order, and then, if you’re like me, you turn that into a spreadsheet. You type up what the cards are showing you into the basic outline for your new project and can refer to it as you begin your writing journey. 

This will likely take you some time, as any plotting device will. But don’t feel compelled to rely solely on your own tarot card interpretive abilities—especially if you’re new to tarot. 

Another bonus of using tarot cards? There is a massive amount of online resources about the cards, especially if you’re using the Rider–Waite–Smith deck! Google a card and a wealth of knowledge and interpretations will come up to inspire you further. You can even Google a card and a topic to get more specific (like “Three of Cups” and “Career” or “Ten of Swords” and “Love”). 

Happy writing! And remember, you are not bound to the way the cards fall. They’re simply a tactile tool to jumpstart creativity and help you think outside of the box. 

Tell us in the comments: Have you ever used tarot cards in your writing? How did it go?

Ashley Christiano is a fantasy writer, experienced tarot reader, and professional astrologer. As The Novel Mystic, she combines the power of astrology, tarot, and creative writing to empower women, educate the astro-curious, and inspire her own storytelling. You can find her on her website or follow her on Twitter or Instagram to learn more or get your own reading.

The post Tarot Cards for Storytellers, Part 1: Beat Writer’s Block and Plot Your Novel appeared first on DIY MFA.

This time around, I’m exploring the tarot as a mythic storytelling tool. This will be a three-part series. In this first part, I’ll introduce you to the tarot. In part two, I’ll look at the various tarot books written with writers in mind. Finally, I’ll choose one method to explore the structure of a couple of well-known novels, one science fiction, and one fantasy.

Let’s get started.

The Origins of the Tarot

The basis of the tarot was a deck of playing cards, not dissimilar to the playing cards we know today. Instead of 52 cards (four suits, ace through ten, plus three face cards), however, the core of the deck was 56 cards. In this case, one, or ace through ten, plus four face cards, page, knight, queen, and king, per suit.

This deck of cards was brought to Italy, France, and Germany from the Islamic countries, some experts say Egypt, but it could easily have been Spain. In the other European countries, an additional 22 cards, called triumphs, or trumps, which had no suit, were added. The first tarot decks were recorded as being used in Italy around 1440. The game played with these cards was related to bridge and was variously called triumph, trionfi, tarocco, or tarock.

It would be three centuries before the tarot started to be used in cartomancy or reading the cards to tell the future. Again, Italy led the way with the first tarot cartomancy guidebook dating to 1750. The French would refine the process and deck through the remainder of the 18^th century.

The Minor Arcana

The core deck I mentioned above is also called the minor arcana. Like our playing cards, it’s divided into four suits. These suits correspond not only to the suits you’re familiar with, but also elements and qualities.

The face or court cards are like character archetypes and though the queens may be the only identifiably female card, any of the court cards can represent either (or any) gender. Think of the court cards as representing a spectrum of experience and archetypal role.

The pages represent youthful or innocent characters, the knights are young adults entering the world and encountering its challenges, the queens are parental figures, and the kings are elders. Pair these with the elements and qualities identified with their respective suit, and you can identify archetypes like the young romantic (page of cups) or the crone (king of swords).

The Major Arcana

The 22 cards of the major arcana are numbered zero through 21. While each card has a specific meaning associated with it, people who read the cards for esoteric purposes, or for creative purposes, can simply look at the card and let their intuition lead them to its meaning.

0 – The Fool: Depicts a person walking, sometimes off a cliff, blithely unaware of what they’re getting into. Often accompanied by a small animal, occasionally harassed or held back by that animal. Represents inexperience, the beginning of a journey, or potential as yet untapped.

1 – The Magician: Shows a person with a wand and other tools of the magical trade. Somewhere in the picture is an infinity symbol, or lemniscate. The meaning is transformation, which is related to magic and alchemy. Also, the ability to change the world with knowledge. The magician could also be a charlatan.

2 – The High Priestess: Pictures a woman, sometimes seated. She could be wearing robes or a headdress. The original name of the card was the papess, or female pope. The card means hidden secrets, prophecy, revelations, or intuition.

3 – The Empress: A woman with a crown and sceptre. Representing creation and procreation, the empress is the mother of a nation. She protects and nurtures.

4 – The Emperor: Depicts a man with crown and sceptre, the defender of the realm. Could mean either the masculine virtues, or the masculine weaknesses.

5 – The Hierophant/Pope: Shows a pope, often blessing children. Means good advice or spiritual guidance.

6 – The Lovers: Two people accompanied by Cupid. Other than the obvious meaning, the card also conveys harmony, people working together toward a common goal, or opposites coming together for a greater purpose.

7 – The Chariot: The image is self-explanatory. Could mean travel or riding into battle.

8 – Strength: Usually depicts a woman holding open the jaws of a lion. The card means fortitude or calmness in the face of danger.

9 – The Hermit: Usually a male figure with a walking stick and lantern. Represents a mentor figure, the wisdom of age, or voluntary separation.

10 – The Wheel of Fortune: Depicts the wheel with animals or iconic figures at the four cardinal points. These will vary depending on the focus of the tarot deck. The wheel of fortune means the circle of life, changing circumstances (for better or worse), or evolution.

11 – Justice: Usually shows the scales, but sometimes the figure of justice or blind justice. It represents the law, fairness, and considered decision-making.

12 – The Hanged Man: The image is not what you’d expect, but shows a person hanging upside down from one foot. Generally does not actually mean punishment or hanging, but a change in perspective, self-sacrifice, or trials.

13 – Death: While the card depicts death or the grim reaper, its meaning isn’t literal. The death card means the end of something, loss, or stagnation.

14 – Temperance: This card can show a number of different images, but the meaning is balance, everything in moderation, waiting, or the deferral of a goal.

15 – The Devil: The images vary, but all depict a devil of some variety. Again, the meaning of this card is not literal. It means that a deal is made, or a bond is formed.

16 – The Tower: Shows a tower being struck by lightning and/or on fire. It means disaster or ruin. This is the big bad card of the deck (rather than death or the devil).

17 – The Star: Depicts either an actual star or a young woman. It represents hope or achieving one’s desires, but not in the expected way.

18 – The Moon: The images will show various representations of the moon. The card’s meaning is secrecy, deception, and the ability to see the truth.

19 – The Sun: Shows various depictions of the sun. The best card in the major arcana. It means happiness, peace, or the achievement of a goal.

20 – Judgment: Typically depicts some version of the Biblical judgement day. The meaning of the card is metaphorical, though. It means outcome or result.

21 – The World: While it may show an image of the world, it more often shows a person in harmony with the natural world. It means completion, success, or the proof of lasting change.

Next Time

If you’ve studied any of the mythic structures, you should be able to see similarities with some of the cards of the major arcana. The whole of the tarot is useful as a brainstorming or structuring tool. It can be used to help you through a block or difficulty in your story.

Next time, I’ll be looking at five books on using the tarot cards as a writer.

Until then, 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.

The post Mythic Storytelling: An Introduction to the Tarot appeared first on DIY MFA.