Tarot for Writers: an Expert’s Guide
Can You Write a Novel with Tarot Cards?
In our ongoing collaboration with Valentina Luna Risaliti, we’ve talked extensively about how to use Tarot to find a way into our creative subconscious. We set here to answer the hard questions: how does one go about using tarot cards in their creative process and can we all do it, as Valentina did, to write a successful (and publishable) novel?
How can a Tarot deck be part of the creative writing process?
Valentina Luna Risaliti has always been drawn to the inexplicable. In her particular vein of work, however, she proves that the supposedly inexplicable is full of patterns, causes, and effects—if one only knows where to look. Tarot has called her from a young age and informed her approach to her every artistic endeavor: “It was my mother who taught me the meaning of the cards, so the process of learning came naturally ever since I was little. Once I was grown, I trained further and integrated the practice with my greatest passion—writing”, she says “as the cards are not only a great way to learn about oneself but also a place of interconnected stories”.
Tarot as a cure (for writer’s block)
“Tarot cards have served writers like Margaret Atwood, T. S. Eliot, or Italo Calvino” says Valentina. She goes on explaining that the very structure of tarot is a clear ancestor of the “hero’s journey” as theorized by Vogler. It is in this particular sense that the cards are an excellent instrument for enriching the narrative, above all when one feels blocked.
According to our expert, Tarot cards are a window to our deepest self and to the suggestions that reawaken in us (and gradually reveal to us) our own most-hidden stubbornness, idiosyncrasies, and subconscious convictions, which we might not be willing to acknowledge in our daily life.
This perspective of Valentina’s work being part of a bigger picture opens her up to her subconscious and helps her tackle creative blocks head-on, by learning something new about herself with every “tarot reading”, she feels as though she cures herself and is able to write better.
“Thanks to tarot we can write innumerable stories and use writing as catharsis, to understand ourselves and (why not) to heal”, Valentina Luna Risaliti.
How to write with tarot
First off, it’s important to follow one’s instinct. Tarot as a creative instrument is very flexible, yet it helps us focus. Choosing a card means basing an entire story only on the archetypes it represents—or not. There really are no fixed rules, just a variety of ways of approaching this practice. Put simply when hit with writer’s block, if nothing else works, and if you’re still not a tarot master, the deck offers 78 prompts.
The many approaches to writing with tarot are something Valentina will tackle in her upcoming workshop. For now, it’ll suffice to say: experimenting is the word!
It’s rare to do actual readings when using tarot for writing, one should simply learn the basics to interpret the cards in order to insert them into one’s own creative process. As the answers reside already within us, tarot cards are only a medium to reach said answers in an intuitive and faster way.
Choosing a tarot deck
Nowadays there are as many tarot decks as there are tarot readers: to each their own. As the very first recollection we have of Tarot is in Italy—the word tarot itself seems to originate from the Italian word tarocco (aka. the card game for which the deck was initially created)—one would assume that anything coming from the sunny country is the right choice.
BUT, in truth a deck recognized as tarot is simply any deck including the Minor Arcana and the twenty-two archetypes of Major Arcana. Choose whatever you like the most.
Plotting and planning with tarot
The tarot can be our friend as we build an outline to our story. In particular, tarot is helpful in those moments moments when we are unsure of how to move forward in our creative writing. What’s our character’s motivation to do something? What are they trying to achieve? What moves their inner engines? It is in those moments, that we can pull out our tarot deck and try to solve those questions.
Drafting
When we are extremely sure of who our character is and what they are trying to achieve, we can more or less say that we have a story. But how do we write the plot? How do we bring our character from point A to point B? How do we move the characters in our world?
Tarot is a great tool to draft out our plot, by allowing the casualty of our readings to guide us. Who will our character meet in the next scene? Let’s ask the cards!
Or—and this is probably our expert’s preferred option—let’s interrogate our own subconscious on where we want to go next, and let’s indulge in freewriting after a tarot reading.
Character development
As much as any tarot reader develops their own process to read the cards, the same should be true for our writing with tarot. As writers, our characters are real to us not any less than our own friends (those that once learned you know how to read tarot, will pester you until you do a reading for them), so why not treat them as such?
When we feel stuck, we might want to do a spread for a character, rather than for ourselves: pull out our deck to find out about their past, their family relationships, their greatest fears and weaknesses. And just like that, we have a perfect character’s development arch.
The most important meaning of a tarot card…
...is the first one that appears in your own mind.
Above all else, what Valentina preaches and teaches in her workshops is aimed at instilling in people a certain trust in their own vision and modes of self-expression. She wishes to provide people with the tools to overcome creative blocks and to make progress in their own writing.
“I would like to transmit the importance of sharing one’s creative work with others and the relevance and intuition in the artistic process. There is no better moment than this one—while we are apart—where sharing knowledge and stimuli is of the uttermost importance”, Valentina Luna Risaliti.
Readers and writers of all levels welcome!
Tarot Creative Workshop
Valentina is passionate and knowledgeable about tarot for writers; and what’s more, she believes it is never too late for anyone to take up—or resume—reading (the cards) or writing (a novel). Each individual artistic journey, she assured us, is unique and legitimate; one need only take the first step.
Want to know even more about tarot for writers? Join Valentina and the Women Writing Berlin Lab for a workshop combining all the most potent elements of tarot reading and creative writing.