Tarot Game for Writers

April 17, 2019April 16, 2019 F.A. HuffmanLeave a comment

Welcome back. This week I have another tarot spread that you can use to help you create your stories. This tarot spread works like a game. First, we will go over the steps you take for the came and then what each card represents.

Come up with a question. This isn’t to figure out the overall storyline. It is to find out a solution to a specific problem. Be as clear as possible with your questions.
Shuffle your cards and deal them out according to the spread below.
Follow the thread that the cards create to come to a solution to your answer. The cards will provide you with a possible solution, but you have to ultimately decide if it’s the right thing for you to do. Whether you use the offered solutions or not, it is typically enough to break through any barriers you may have.
Keep a note of what your reading provided you. I keep a writing journal with all of my tarot readings. This can help to serve as future inspiration.

Alright, here is the spread you will be using:

One thing I need to tell you, as you can see each section of cards is color coded. When you lay out your cards, you need to start on the side with three cards, the conflict, world, and motive, and move over to the two outcome cards.

As for what the cards mean:

Conflict: This is what the outer conflict is surrounding your questions. This could be about a character, it all depends on what your question was, to begin with.

World: This what the ordinary world around the problem is and how it plays into your problem.

Motive: This is what your characters inner motive. This is what makes everything move towards an outcome

The next four cards move into what the obstacles are that your character will have to face moving forward.

Guide: This is their guide or mentor of sorts.

Home: This refers to the pull from their home. How their home life is affecting their decisions.

Controller: This refers to what controls them the most. This could be a person, place or thing. Whatever has the most control over the character.

Key: This is the main reason why they are having problems.

Next, we are moving into actions that will help them reach their outcomes.

Decisions: This card is an optional card. You don’t have to pull one. These are the decisions that your character has to make. These will likely be tough for your character.

Steps: These are the actions steps that your character has to take in order to reach their outcome.

Lastly, we have two outcomes.

External outcomes: This the top card. These are the changes that happen in the outside world of the character the physical things that were affected by their decisions.

Internatl outcomes: This is the bottom card. These are the changes that take place inside of your character. This is how he or she was affected internally by their own actions.

Alright, that’s it for this tarot reading. Try this a few times and I bet this will be what you turn to every time you feel stuck in your writing. Tell me what you think in the comments below.

“Be ruthless about protecting writing days, i.e. do not cave in to endless requests to have “essential” and “long overdue” meeting on those days.”

– J.K. Rowling

FYI:

Grab your copy of Loved by Death on Amazon. Get Loved by Death: Book One of The Wolfsbane Chronicles today.

Tarot for Writer’s Block

March 20, 2019March 19, 2019 F.A. HuffmanLeave a comment

In the coming weeks, I will be sharing more tarot spreads for writing. Last week we covered a 9 card spread for a short story. Today we will look at a plot spread to help the writer with the elusive writer’s block.

There are two parts to this spread. First, shuffle your cards until you feel you have shuffled enough. Then lay out three cards according to the picture.

This first spread is about you and your writer’s block.

AS: This card is your significator card. This card represents you in this moment of stagnation.

Card 1: This card is telling you what is causing your stagnation or your writer’s block. This is the reason why you are having problems writing.

Card 2: This card tells you what you can do to work through your writer’s block. This is meant to help you overcome the problem so that you can continue to write.

Now, place these cards back into the deck, all three of them, and reshuffle your tarot deck. Once you feel you have shuffled enough, you will deal out the cards as follows.

Card 1: This card tells you about your protagonist, what they are like, how they look, act, job, and so on.

PS: This is the significator for the protagonist. This tells you about a person or a situation that is influencing your protagonist. You can pull more than one PS card if you would like.

Card 2: This card tells you about your antagonist, what they are like, how they look, act, job, and so on.

AS: This is the significator for the antagonist. This tells you about a person or a situation that is influencing your protagonist. You can also pull more AS cards if you want to.

Card 3: This card tells you about the conflict between the two characters, the background, and what is going on.

Card 4: This card tells you about the situation you left the characters in last. This gives you a sort of starting point.

Card 5: This card provides you with a possible solution to the problem and story. This could be your ending or a new beginning.

This is a great way to work through writer’s block, especially the first three card spread. If you are working on multiple projects, you can do a different reading for each to figure out what the stagnation is for each project.

Please, on these tarot spread blogs, share the stories that spread has been able to help you with.

“Books are like Tarot decks. They provide answers and guidance but more importantly, they are doorways and portals to the otherworld and the imagination. They leave their imprint and keep whispering to us long after we close the pages or shuffle the deck.”
― Sasha Graham, Tarot Fundamentals

FYI:

Grab your copy of Loved by Death on Amazon. To celebrate the start of spring, get Loved by Death: Book One of The Wolfsbane Chronicles ebook for free for a limited time.

Short Story Tarot Spread

March 14, 2019March 14, 2019 F.A. HuffmanLeave a comment

Welcome back!

It has been a bit since I wrote a blog about using tarot for writing. We’ve done a few easy spreads to help create a quite plot outline and to discover traits about our characters. Today we will do a tarot spread to help you write a short story.

If you haven’t yet, make sure you read my first to blogs and check out my videos about tarot for writing:

https://fahuffman.com/2018/10/29/4-tarot-writing-plots/

https://fahuffman.com/2018/10/02/tarot-as-a-writing-aid/

In other news, let’s get down to what we really came here for.

While I really want to talk about the Celtic Cross spread, it is a more advanced spread. Instead of jumping into something that might be difficult to use, I figured I would cover some easier spreads first. Today, we are going to look at an easy 9 card spread to help to create a short story.

To start you spread, shuffle you tarot cards until you feel like that they have been shuffled enough. While you are shuffle, think about the reason why you are shuffling. Let the cards and the Universe know that you want to get a layout for a short story.

Then lay each of the cards out in the pattern shown above. You can place them face down and flip each over as you get to it, or you can lay it out face up, whichever works best for you.

Card 1: This card tells you who your narrator is. This could mean anything that you want it to be. Maybe you want to know if it’s an omniscient being is watching the story unfold or it could be the protagonist. Who knows, it could be the antagonist.

Card 2: This card tells you the outer persona of your protagonist. This is how they present themselves to the world. This may not correlate with how they truly feel.

Card 3: This card tells you the inner persona of your protagonist. This is how they actually feel. This is their inside and true self.

Card 4: This card tells you how the story will start. This is your beginning.

Card 5: This card tells you about the middle of the story. This is the middle.

Card 6: This card tells you how the story will end.

Card 7 & 8: These cards tell you about two minor characters. You can also pull more cards if you want more minor characters. These characters can end up helping or hindering your protagonist.

Card 9: This card tells you about the main theme of the story.

That’s it. The hardest part is interpreting the cards, but it doesn’t have to be. Practice interpreting the cards before you ever do you first spread. (Easier said than done)

Most tarot cards come with a book that explains the cards, but you can also find information online. The more you do these spreads the easier they will become.

“It’s said that the shuffling of the cards is the earth, and the pattering of the cards is the rain, and the beating of the cards is the wind, and the pointing of the cards is the fire. That’s of the four suits. But the Greater Trumps, it’s said, are the meaning of all process and the measure of the everlasting dance.”
― Charles Williams

FYI:

Grab your copy of Loved by Death on Amazon. Make sure you keep an eye on Loved by Death: Book One of The Wolfsbane Chronicles. You never know what kind of sale you might find.