You may not be aware that I write scripts as well as pull cards, (it’s true!) but I have to share how I turned to my Tarot cards in desperation whilst struggling to rewrite a recent screenplay… Because it opened my eyes to a whole new world of writing with Tarot! 😎
Not that writing with Tarot is new of course, but even though I use Tarot for pretty much everything, this was a first for me. Neither was I working on a first draft. It was the eighth or ninth draft I was wrestling with…
I was having trouble getting a scene in the set-up to sparkle. Specifically, the introduction of a chap who would later become the love interest of my heroine… that I had written a hundred damn different ways with nothing working, then BAM: “Ask the Tarot!” yelled the voice in my head – so I did – and what did I discover while writing with Tarot? Well…
1. I shuffled my cards and asked: What do I need to do ‘overall’ to fix this scene? And pulled one card: THE QUEEN OF SWORDS. 
And the message was clear: CUT, CUT, CUT! Be ruthless and ‘KILL YOUR DARLINGS!’ Got it. 🙂
NOTE: This may not be how YOU see the Queen of Swords and that’s fine, as all cards mean different things to all of us on different occasions, but this is the message I KNEW I was being given. {As I say in my ebook, once you learn to trust your intuition, the cards will speak to you in ways that make sense to YOU}.
2. I then shuffled the cards again and asked: How is this chap feeling in this particular scene? Then pulled one card: THE FOUR OF CUPS. 
…And suddenly understood that my hero needed to be more despondent from the offset! Which made perfect sense as he’s about to go on a journey of transformation, so needs to start in the bleakest place possible to make the journey apparent. Obvious, huh… But until then I hadn’t even twigged that his cheeriness was why the scene wasn’t working!
3. I had another scene with establishing shots of traffic in central London on a stormy night, which I had rewritten over and over, but it still felt kinda flat… Until I shuffled the cards and asked: What do I need to do to bring this scene to life? And pulled: THE HERMIT.
BAM. Immediately I understood that in order to make the scene interesting, I needed to ‘shine a light’ on the detail in the traffic, instead of droning on about all of it en masse. So the first line of that scene became: “A red bus WHOOSHES through a titanic puddle”…
And I was hooked on writing with Tarot! 😀
4. How did I know when a scene was finally right? The cards told me! Usually with the SIX OF WANDS (success) or the TEN OF CUPS! (joy) Hurrah!
5. But what if the cards are NEVER happy?
Well, one scene I really struggled with, but just kept going, asking the cards questions about characters and action… making changes then asking more questions, until… BOOM …I finally pulled THE WORLD (completion) and knew that I was done. Happy Days. 😆
PHEW. That may seem a long-winded way to go about editing scripts, (it is) so I’m not suggesting you do this with every scene/chapter/verse of whatever it is you’re working on (unless you wish to, of course). But if you’re stuck somewhere, it really is remarkable how:
Writing with Tarot can help!
Other Tarot readers/writers use their cards from the get-go, to plot out stories and characters before they start – and this seems an interesting process to explore, so here’s a couple I’ve found online...
A Tarot spread for writer’s block from Modron Lotus Garden:
A ‘Tarot game/spread for writers’ by Riply Nox I found on Pinterest and can’t wait to try out, (sadly the link no longer exists) that appears to be based on the Hero’s Journey:
And after a quick search, it turns out there are quite a few books about writing with Tarot! (Who knew?) Here’s what I discovered…
{Clicking the images should take you to your local Amazon. They are affiliate links, which means I get a few pennies – at no cost to you – should you choose to purchase}.
Have you tried writing with Tarot?
Want help using your Tarot cards?
‘Easy Peasy Tarot Card Meanings’
is the magical guide you’ve been waiting for.
A lively, modern, user-friendly handbook that makes reading the Tarot cards effortless.
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