On The Tarot And Writing

Tarot may or may not show you your future, but it can show you your blind spots. And you can use that in your writing.

This question came from a reader on the night when I was answering questions on Instagram last month: How does reading the Tarot affect your writing? The answer was too big for the box, but perfect for the newsletter.

The Querent, to start, is the name of someone sitting down to ask the Tarot cards a question. So the influence on me is, you could say, large. I have so many decks now, presents from readers and friends, that I have a drawer in my office for them.

But a good way to explain the influence is an exercise I offer to students: how to use the positions of the Celtic Cross reading, a fairly traditional Tarot layout, in order to understand a character in a scene better, especially when I don’t yet know the plot or the characters—sometimes you just get a scene you don’t understand and it pulls you in.

You don’t need any cards for this, you just need to write down these ten prompts and answer them, though if you like, and you have cards, and could draw a card to answer each of the below.

1. Who is in this scene?

2. What is in their way currently?

3. What is the more immediate past—the influence that is leaving?

4. What is headed toward them, the immediate future?

5. What is the reason this character believes they are in this situation for—the goal they have, even some higher life goal above the others that aligns, perhaps, with this?

6. What is the unconscious drive, what might they not be aware of that makes decisions for them, even disguised as what they believe is their higher life goal?

7. How do other people around them see them? Or, how do they self-sabotage in the pursuit of their goals?

8. Who or what are the external forces in the situation that will affect the outcome, out of their control and perhaps unknown to them?

9. What do they hope is possible, and what do they fear is possible?

10. Where does all of this take them? Which is to say, how can this become a plot?

The cards tell stories through archetypes, as stories do. But they also introduce you to your blind spots, more importantly, and you can use that to find your character’s blind spots too, which is where you can find your plot. A plot that belongs only to this character.

I don’t read the cards very often now, maybe just a few times a year. I don’t usually ask the cards about writing. But what I like about the Tarot is how it makes me think of my life holistically. My work too. There’s a Tarot reading in my first novel that I drew while writing the novel, and I used it as is. It was perfect for the novel and it also taught me about the characters. Thus this exercise was born.

You could do this with nonfiction also, maybe using a photo from your past. Ask these questions about the person you were.

Tarocchi Cards, Anonymous, Italian, 15th-16th Century, courtesy of The Metropolitan Open Access Collection.

Thanks so much for reading.

Until next time,

Alexander Chee