Haley Dziuk - Tarot for Fiction Writers

Have you ever had a really great story idea, but were unable to flesh it out into a full-fledged narrative? If youre a pantser (someone who writes by the seat of their pants), you may have written a dozen pages before getting stuck. If youre a plotter (someone who plots their novel out before writing), you probably havent started writing yet, because you know in your gut an essential piece of the story is missing, the plot element that will take it from ok to amazing.

Then one day the answer hits you. The plot twist that readers will never see coming but makes total sense, the character flaw that will make your protagonist oh-so-relatable, or the complication that keeps your heroine from sharing her feelings with her love interest. Aha! Why didnt I see that sooner? You think as you sprint for your computer or note pad.

Every writer experiences these moments and the elation that accompanies them. Its like having a muse whisper directly in your ear. For most, these eureka moments happen only rarely, with no pattern as to what sets them off. You might not even be actively working on writing. You could be walking your dog or taking a shower. (Personally, Ive had a freakish amount of them while standing in line at amusement parks.)

What if I told you theres a way to trigger these moments to happen? That you no longer have to wait for the whims of the muses to turn in your favor?

Thats what the tarot can do for you.

If someone told me this a year ago, I would have laughed. My grandmother gave me a couple tarot decks when I was young, so Ive always had them around; but apart from a few Halloween parties, they spent the majority of their time in my possession languishing in a closet. Though I was skeptical of their purported uses, I was still drawn to them and could never bring myself to throw them out.

Fast forward to last summer. I was up against a tight deadline but was stuck on a major plot point in my story. No matter what I did, I couldnt seem to connect the pieces of my story to make it go where it needed to. It was during a procrastination session on Pinterest that I came across a storytellers spread.

The idea that you could use tarot as a writing tool seemed like a novelty at best, but what did I have to lose? I pulled out one of my decks and laid out a few cards.

At first, the cards didnt seem to be connected in any way, either to each other or to the story problem I was facing. Still, I stared at the cards, trying to wrest some meaning from them.

And then it hit me: the answer to my problem. It was perfect, and once I saw it, totally obvious, too. It felt like Id been blocked because my subconscious was waiting for me to catch up and see it.

I immediately jumped on my computer and started writing, and I didnt stop until the story was done. At first, I thought this must be a fluke, but in the few months between that first spread and now, Ive had dozens of such moments.

Even the spreads that dont reveal a major development such as the one I just described help me learn about my plot, characters, and world. I havent done a single spread that felt wasted. More than that, laying out a tarot spread puts me into an energized, creative flow state. Im better able to focus on my story and the writing process, whereas otherwise I often feel distracted.

So, Ive become something of a convert. I still consider myself an analytical person, but I cant deny the benefits the tarot has brought into my writing life. I hope to bring these benefits to you, too, which is why I wrote Tarot for Fiction Writers.

Are you ready to unlock your creativity to discover engaging, realistic characters and jaw-dropping storylines? Then read on!