How I Build A Character Profile: Using Tarot in my writing pt.1

​Hey y’all. Welcome back to my blog. Last month I did a post about how I “plan” as a pantser and I briefly touched on using tarot as a tool that helps me build my characters. Coming off the latest #20kIn5Days challenge in which I had to do the work for a new WIP, I figured it’d be a good time to go more in depth with that process.

In the other post, I mentioned the character workbook that we got as part of the 20K challenge and it was/is a great tool to help me think a bit more about who my characters are before I start writing because I honestly was learning things about them as I wrote. And I still do. I do the prep, but my characters are typically assholes who like to throw a glitch in whenever they can. (And yes, I’m aware I’m technically* in charge, but am I really???)

After learning about tarot (shout out again to Lisa Kessler for her classes, especially the one for writing) I searched the world wide web for a tarot spread that would be focused on characters. There are plenty out there, so it was just a matter of finding one that had questions that were more my speed for what I was looking to discover about the fictional people who control me. 

This is the one I use. It was simple enough that I wouldn’t break out in hives from the thought of doing too much pre-work on the story, but also the questions listed gave me a decent amount of information to build the foundation. 

I have two decks that are strictly for my story use: The Muse Tarot (by Chris-Anne) and the Love Story Oracle deck (by Deja Drewit). The Muse one I use for the spread, and the oracle is used to get insight on the characters’ view of love and relationships individually as well as the relationship as a whole. I first used that particular deck when prepping for Love & Sportsball, the release I have coming out in September with Afterglow Books (more on that later).

As I stated last month, my Love On Madison Island series was my first planned series. And with that my approach to writing the stories was still evolving. For the first two books, I only used the character workbooks, but in between the completion is when I took Lisa’s class, Tarot for Writers, and wanted to see how that impacted how things went for me. So for this post I’m using Mechanics of Love and I’m focusing just on the spread.

Now, part of the prep for 20K has you writing the blurb of the story FIRST before anything. This is what I originally came up with for Mechanics of Love before anything else based off the basic idea of the story. 

Sometimes it’s the people you least expect who can provide a much needed tune up of your life...

For Dr. Irene Johnson-Moore perception is everything. She’s spent her whole life living up to an idea of perfection, but returning home to Madison Island, GA becomes the first crack in the facade. Being around the people who think they know her best makes it harder to keep up with the charade of an idyllic life. 

The dissolution of her marriage was hard enough to admit, but when unexpected time spent around the town mechanic brings idled feelings revving back Irene might be forced to finally be true to not only her friends and family, but also herself.

Remi Martin likes to keep her life simple. Attempting to keep up pretense usually leads to more trouble than it’s worth. When she goes out on a call for a stranded motorist, she was not expecting to be towing trouble into her life.

Based on that, the general thoughts I had about the characters were that Irene was going to making some changes with how she viewed her life. She’d been effectively lying (even if by omission) to those around her, even her two best friends. She was the one I expected to have a lot of work to do over the course of the story in order to become the woman she wanted to be.

Remi on the other hand was supposed to be the simple one. She was a down-to-earth woman with basic wants in life. What you saw was what you got with Remi. Or so I thought… 

 Okay, so how did the pull go? Below are the exact notes I have in the story file.

Please note that the Muse Tarot has different names for some of the suits which is why you’ll see some written with a /. 

Irene:

1.  Justice: Irene needs to find integrity and truth in her actions and what she shares with people. Even those closest to her. Not being 100% truthful has come back to bite her in the ass. Plus she has to deal with how she treated Remi in high school and how her actions/choices were a deflection and jealousy. Irene’s baggage: early menopause, getting divorced because of it and he cheated. Hiding that she’s bi because of age and perceptions. 
   
2. 7 of voices/swords: Irene is really good at hiding her true self. She presents what she wants people to see but it’s all a mask. She’s done it for so long, she has a hard time even being real with her friends
   
3. 7 of inspiration/wands: Keeping her truth protected. She doesn’t allow many people in and therefore her most sacred and private thoughts remain her own so they aren’t judged, discredited, or mocked.
   
4. Queen of inspiration/wands: Irene wants to be free to live her life as she wants it without care or judgment. Wants to be accepted for her flaws as well as her perfections.
   
5. Queen of materials/pentacle: wants unconditional love. Which she already has if she trusted and believed in herself. Her friends and family love her regardless. Other than Derrick who was a cheating asshole because she couldn’t give him kids. 
   
6. 8 of emotions/cups: For Irene, it would be letting go of the idea of how her life should have gone and accepting how it is. She loses her inner privacy by being open, but she could gain so much more than what could be lost.
   
7. 7 of emotions/cups: Irene wants to live openly and freely, but she won’t make the choice to get out of her own way. Because she stays closed off, she is missing out on opportunities to make herself happier and improve her quality of life.
   
8. 8 of materials/pentacles: Irene’s need to be seen as perfect. Her obsession with how people perceive her life and the type of person she is. With her parents being upstanding citizens of the town. Her father a doctor, and her mother a dedicated wife and mother, Irene put the pressure on herself to emulate that. Her parents always had what she thought was the biggest house, nicer cars and clothes. They had an air of importance that always radiated from them. Widely respected and Irene wanted that for herself.
   
9. Muse of voices/swords: Her reluctance to be open and honest could put the budding relationship with Remi at stake. Remi is out and proud and refuses to be in the closet or be a secret hook-up in the town she lives in. Irene has to either shit or get off the pot so to speak otherwise she could end up not even being friends with Remi depending on how messed up her actions are in the story.
   

Remi:

1.  2 of materials/pentacles: she needs to make a choice 
   

possibly how to handle Irene and their attraction to each other. Plus Irene’s reluctance to admit she’s bi and be honest with herself and others

1.  7 of emotions/cups: decisions.
   

being sure of herself and the choices she makes. She doesn’t second guess herself often and typically stands behind her decisions

1. Knight of materials/pentacles: she typically doesn’t rush into making a choice. She will slow down and think things through. The outlier could be getting involved with Irene.
   
2. Page of emotions/cups: The history between her and Irene. Though it was antagonistic, it also was something she almost looked forward to. Getting under Irene’s skin with her lack of caring about what Irene or others thought about her. Building on that and crafting it into something new.
   
3. Knight of voices/swords: to stay true to herself and the life she’s built. Also encouraging Irene (in a way) to also live her truth. Showing Irene that image and perception isn’t everything.
   
4. 5 of inspiration/wands: Staying true to herself despite Irene’s reluctance to be open about their budding relationship. Fighting against her shot at love if that means she has to be a secret. 
   
5. 8 of materials/pentacles: Need to be seen as someone worthy. Being a mechanic isn’t something to be ashamed of. She’s worked hard, built up her business and has become successful with owning rental properties on top of the autobody shop.  
   
6. 6 of emotions/cups: One of the big issues Irene had with Remi was due to the fact her father was simply a mechanic. With Irene being the doctor’s daughter, she felt like she was better than Remi and made that belief known often. It’s something that bothered Remi even if she never let on to that fact.
   
7. 7 of materials/pentacles: Has a hard time forgetting some of what Irene said to her and how it made her feel. Remi wants to wait until Irene fully apologizes and makes the first move on turning the relationship real, but with Irene’s reluctance, not pushing could mean it never is realized.
   

Initially, I was feeling good about the pull and what each meant for the characters. And this was always going to be just a guide, a suggestion, nothing stringent that wouldn’t allow the characters to develop as the story went on. And some things did change, especially surrounding Irene’s sexuality and her relationship with it, which in turn shifted the dynamic between her and Remi. Irene had her bi-awakening in high school, and had accepted who she was in college. It became more about convincing Remi that she (Irene) wasn’t the same person from high school and that worked better for the story.

Fun fact, I do this prep work, but I honestly rarely refer back to it while I’m actually writing because again I use it as a base guide but I’m okay with veering off course. If I’m stuck on a particular part, I may look this over to see where the conflict lies from what I thought and where I’m at (if that makes sense). I will also do another one or two card pull for the situation I’m blocked on to see if that helps give me direction. 

I like that tarot is a tool that can give insight, but also allows flexibility with the interpretations. And even though some of those things shifted as the story came together, at the core the cards were pretty spot on with the ladies. Because I liked the process of the spread, and because I’m learning and growing, next was adding an oracle deck to the mix. Because I write romance, the Love Story deck was the perfect addition to my toolbox. 

That’s all for now. In my next post, I’ll go into more detail on how I use it and how it helped with the construction of Love & Sportsball. If you’ve read Mechanics of Love, let me know if you think what I had for Remi and Irene hold up to how they came across in the story. 

Until next time,
~Meka