(Tarot Prompts for Writers)
Keep the image and meaning of The World in mind as you develop a story. But go beyond the card — don’t stress about any aspects you “should” include. The card is just a tool to prompt ideas. You can take it anywhere. Take on the whole world.
First line prompts
- “You could travel much faster by sea,” she told me.
- The lion stared at him with almost friendly amusement.
- The old world is finished; long live the new world.
Continue the scene for another 500 words, in any direction you wish to take it. Change to third or first person or switch genders as you see fit. Make this an opening to a longer work or a complete flash fiction.
Setting Prompt
Your story takes place on another world.
Remember the meaning of The World, but go beyond the card to imagine this alternate universe.
Maybe you’re not a sci-fi lover, maybe you’re not a genre writer, maybe you like to stick to contemporary realism. Fine. Set your story on another planet and make it realistic and contemporary for that time and place. Stretch your storytelling wings to encompass a whole new world.
Come up with some setting details. Urban or rural? A healthy environment or one in decline? The midst of war? The birth of life? What kind of beings live here whose story you might tell? Humans newly arrived? Natives about to leave? Giant critters battling for dominance?
Think of your opening scene. Has the third moon just risen? Or is the sun about to show its face so everyone has to head underground? There are no limits to your fictional setting — home in on one specific place in your world where your story opens.
Someone is active in this other world. Describe the scene that lies before them.
Planners can do a setting sketch — culture and nature, five senses, maybe a map, and notes on what might happen here.
Pantsers can write a paragraph or three, as a character takes on the world.
Image Prompt
The blue marble.
Write an opening scene that features the image of our world from a distance.
Take a good long look at our beautiful world — remember all the nothing that surrounds it, too — and write any sentence that rises up in you. Any genre, any voice. If you draw a blank, start with a wish you have for the world. Begin with those words, “I wish the world…” and just keep writing.
Trust your instincts and write a scene, a memory, a letter to the world, that touches your heart.
Happy writing!
Images on this page are by the following artists: Banner, left to right: Marseilles deck engraved by Nicolas Conver; Dragon Tarot illustrated by Roger and Linda Garland; Tarot Balbi by Domenico Balbi; Gilded Tarot by Ciro Marchetti; Radiant Rider-Waite deck illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith; Druid Craft deck illustrated by Will Worthington.
Catherine Austen 