May 2024: Tarot Cards For Writing Inspiration

Just in time for Spring, I’ve provided a reading that is both dark and emotionally complex to offset the sunshine-bright and fancy-free spirit of the season. Hope you enjoy!

Deck: The Golden Tarot by Kat Black

 

Character: XI Justice. I think that this is the only reading that I’ve done for these “writing inspiration” readings that hasn’t identified a clear character I can build on. As a result, I chose to cast Justice as the main character for this reading. Justice can serve as a character in that it can decide how to rule in the lives of people it affects throughout the book, for better or for worse. It’s been said that Justice is impartial (or blind), but that’s typically not the case. Sometimes, the acts of Justice can cause more suffering and pain in their implementation, and often biases and Justice go hand in hand. Think about ways to include Justice as an active, engaged presence that influences the lives and decisions of the other characters in your story. Alternatively, what could influence Justice to act or intervene in certain circumstances, and who would they chose to mete out said Justice? What if there were multiple powerful individuals that were competing to impose their own belief systems as a form of Justice?

 

Setting: Eight of Swords. The reckoning of Justice has been imposed on the characters in your story. This could be explored through their lens by how they react to their newly changed set of circumstances. How would the characters handle the adversity and the punishments handed down by Justice? Would they rebel, would they accept their fate and try to come to terms with their changed circumstances, or would they try to evade punishment in some other way? Alternatively, if the characters benefit by the judgment of Justice in some way, are they satisfied with the punitive sentence, or would they demand more stringent punishment, and face the wrath of Justice themselves? What would the environment look like before Justice intervened?

 

Theme/Development: Ten of Coins (Reversed). This card in the reversed position, despite the appearance of Justice as a main character, does not shed light into the situation at hand. Justice may be in the process of being served, but there are so many emotional and mental effects that go hand in hand with this process. It may be hard for the characters to understand not only the Justice process, but the acts that came before. Ironically, the artwork on this card shows a person that is blindfolded while trying to navigate a path that is blocked by swords in every direction. Only Justice can see the bigger picture, but it may be hard for those affected to understand the situation, blinded as they may be by grief or rage, and they risk being on the receiving end of Justice’s proclamations as well.

 

Conflict/Climax: Three of Swords. These cards, overall, provide the writer/creator an opportunity to create a very dark tale where there may not be a happy ending, or even a very clear-cut resolution, as befits the complexity of the humyn condition. The horror, here, can be uncomfortably close to real life, and be truly terrifying as a result. The challenge for writers would be to still provide a sense of closure to the reader, yet still provide them with the spookily unsettling feeling as caused by a lack of resolution. Justice is never simple, of course, and can leave behind the swath of heartbreak and unbearable pain, not to mention the preexisting relationships among once close-knit people or communities that have also been destroyed by the acts that necessitated the intervention of Justice in the first place.