I Made My Characters With Tarot Spreads and So Can You!

My novel Awakened is about trans witches fighting artificial intelligence with magic. It's got a lot going on, weird-specific-craft-wise: I wrote it in response to J.K. Rowling's transphobic bullshit, so it's got a ton of direct opposites of Harry Potter. For example, my characters are adults, there's no school for magic, everyone is trans, etc.

(Using Tarot in the Writing Process.)

I also used a very janky AI and a corpus I curated myself to write the book's villain, called The Hex. I could write a whole article on that, as a matter of fact. And lastly, I generated all the chapters—and all the characters—by pulling tarot cards. Because witches.

For those unfamiliar, tarot decks are, essentially, 78 archetypes illustrated onto cards. A tarot spread is a layout for the cards you pull. Yes, you could just pull one at a time and write from those (that's what I did with my chapters), but the most fun characters are pretty complicated. They have goals and flaws and tattoos. That's why I recommend using my very favorite tarot spread to create characters—the Celtic Cross. Here's how I tweaked the spread to make characters, and how you can do it, too!

And this deck should vibe on the character you're making. For example, I have a character in Awakened called Artemis; I knew going in that she would be the leader-Mother type figure in the group, so I chose Many Queens by Lettie Jane Makes. Shuffle this deck real, real good and, while you're at it, think on the parts of the character you already know you want.

I knew her role; I knew she would be trans; I knew she would have a beard that she loved and covered with glitter. Everything else? No clue, that's what this spread is for. Personally, I then cut the deck into three piles and choose one of the piles to draw from (usually the middle unless I have a strong gut feeling toward one of the other two).

Your first card goes right in the center and describes the character as they start in the book. Now I've been reading my own cards since 2012, which means I kinda just know what each card means. But you don't have to know off the top of your head to make characters using tarot spreads! Here are three resources to rely on when you don't know what the hell the card you just pulled means—

Most decks have their own guides that come with them! Some are more comprehensive than others, but more information doesn't necessarily mean better.

This method can slow you down, but sometimes I draw a card and I'm not sure what it could mean in the context of where and how I drew it. That's when I turn to Learn Tarot, which looks like it was made in the 90s because it was.

Listen, there aren't any rules, and we're all hurtling through space on a rock. You can just—look at the art and describe what you see. What symbols are present and what do they mean to you, what patterns repeat, are there any people on the card? This is how Artemis got her arrow tattoo; the figure on the card had one and I thought that was important.

You'll likely use all three of these tactics as you continue on the spread. Pause here and write a physical description of your character that dips a little bit into their emotionality. Do it in the style of your book, as though this is the character introduction. And guess what—it might be! Pieces of my notes from my spreads wound up in the first scenes in which each character appeared.

I don't know, should you? Some cards have different meanings when they're upside down, as this one is! You don't have to care about that, but you could if you want to make things even more complex. Some folks read reversals as a frustration of energy. Some read it as beginning or ending energy. Some folks read it as opposite day! Worry about it or not, the choice is yours.

This is going to be the character's central challenge or flaw, something that they're going to have to really work to overcome throughout the book. It can be external or internal; usually they wind up being a mix of both.

This represents what happened immediately before the book began. See if you can connect it to the challenge in some way. This also can give you a solid flashback scene!

Here's the next thing that's going to happen to them immediately after they're introduced. See if you can connect it to both the past card and the challenge card. I like to think of those three as a rainbow or their own little plot arc. This is a great to-do list card—it gives you the next thing to work on when you're at a loss staring at a blank page.

This is an immediate goal or ideal, an energy to reach for, something that the character wants. Again, see if you can connect it to your challenge card. Why is this hard for your character to get? How is the challenge directly interfering with this win?

Why is this character having this particular challenge? This card will tell you! It's the root cause, usually something subconscious the character is going through. This is a great card for a reveal in your plot!

What are other characters telling your character to do? This card can even give you a whole scene where someone else has some advice for your character and then we get to watch your character figure out what to do with that advice—whether to take it or not.

What else is happening that your character has absolutely no control over? Even more fun if this somehow makes their challenge harder or more complex.

Hopes and fears are nearly always two sides of the same coin. We dread things and we want them, and sometimes those things are the same things. This is a really fun card because making the thing your character fears the most come true is an inherently dramatic scene.

This is how this character's story will end! In fact, sometimes I like to write the final scene and work backward. This card can help you do that, but do note: that end changes a lot! If you try the backwards method, don't be afraid to rewrite the scene, sometimes entirely!

Looking for more? Check out writing by Meg Jones Wall at 3AM.Tarot, the king of queer tarot spreads. They have a book all about creating and revising your own tarot spreads that would be perfect for folks who want to get into writing more with tarot cards.

When I do this exercise with students who are hesitant to spend money, I tell them to go download a tarot app. However—creating with physical things is way underrated right now and I think you should do it with a deck. A lot of libraries have decks you can check out if buying one isn't in the cards (ha!) right now. Start by practicing with this pull. See what character you can come up with!

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