Tarot For Writers: Make Your Own Happy Ever After

How To Use Tarot For Creative Writing

I believe that creativity and intuition are linked.  Therefore, if you develop your creativity you can go from being a good tarot reader to a great tarot reader.

I’m by no means suggesting that tarot reading is ‘made up’ but for me, tarot reading is like storytelling.  I love delving beneath the traditional meanings of the cards and interpreting the stories that unfold before me.

Tarot is quite commonly used for creative writing and can be a great way for getting through writer’s block.

I don’t consider myself to be a writer but I do love storytelling and often find myself using tarot when writing blog posts.  I will ask ‘what do my readers need to know right now?” or “what else should I focus on?’

I’ve developed a few different ways that we can use tarot to boost our creativity and to help us strengthen the relationship with our cards.

I’ve put together a 9 page PDF workbook that you can download for free.  This workbook has a few tarot exercises to get you started with writing your very own story.  Give is a go and see where this takes you….

Using Tarot Creatively

I would encourage you to pull 3 cards and write down the basic outline for a story.

Think of the cards as beginning, middle and end.

Don’t think of this as a reading, just think of it as a story.  Here is an example:

Beginning: There was a young princess who had a love for animals.  She was so aligned with nature that could communicate with animals and had control over the forest.

Middle: Her father, the King, was incredibly cold and strict.  Without telling her he has made a business deal which would see the forest destroyed.  He has little compassion for his daughter’s feelings or for the impact this would have on the animals.

End: The Princess quickly great into a woman and developed a plan to save the forest.  She worked day and night to ensure that the forest was brought back to its former glory.  She became so strong that her father knew never to cross her again.  With nature on her side, she could not be defeated.

So there we have the very bare bones of a story. There obviously needs to be a lot of fleshing out but I hope that gives you a bit of an idea about where we can go with this.

Using Tarot For Writer’s Block

If you are writing a short story or a book and you become stuck you can let the tarot cards choose the path for your character.

Questions you may want to ask could include:

What caused the character to feel this way?
Who is the character?
What influences from their past are impacting them now?
What will they do next?
What challenges will they face?
What action should they take to overcome the challenges?
What is their most endearing characteristic?
What is the shadow side of this character?

As you see you can dig really deep into the psyche of the character.  You could do this for everybody in the book.

The cards are so rich and have so many layers that there is no limit to the number of options available to you.

Let your imagination run wild and see what is revealed for your character.

Fairytales And Tarot

Did you know that you can also use your tarot cards to write a fairytale?

I’ve had a lot of fun with this myself and you can read my 2 fairytales here…

A Very Tarot Fairytale – Part 1

A Very Tarot Fairytale  – Part 2

I just draw one card at a time and let the story reveal itself to me.  You may find yourself getting stuck at some points but just take your time and you will find something in the card that can relate to the story.

I keep going until I feel I get to a natural ending.

As you see there are many ways to use tarot.  This is great for exercising your creative muscles and in turn, this will help you develop your intuition as well as make you a better tarot reader!

I’ve included a worksheet that you can download that will get you started.  I ask a few questions to help shape your story – characters, setting etc.  Just enter your details here to download it.