Nostalgia: A Tarot Spread for Fiction Writers
Give your character a wave of nostalgia in the next scene, then find out what it's really pointing to.
What This Spread Helps You Do
Nostalgia is one of the fastest ways to open a character up without stopping the story to explain them. Something in the scene sends them backward, and what they reach for tells you what they have lost and never replaced. This spread is useful when a character has been competent and composed for too many chapters and you need a crack in that.
The Spread
Draw one card for each position:
The trigger
- What sparks the nostalgia: the detail in the scene that sends your character backward.
What surfaces
- What they're missing: the thing they reach for and never replaced.
- What it costs them now: the price that absence is quietly charging in the present.
How to Use This Spread
You will need a tarot deck to do these exercises. Grab your deck and let's get started.
The Tarot Prompting Process works like this:
- First, find a quiet spot where you can concentrate.
- Spend a few minutes thinking about the story, specific scene, or character you'd like to work on. What do you already know? What puzzle piece(s) are you missing?
- Based on what came up in step 2, choose a prompt to help you go deeper into the scene.
- Grab a tarot deck.
- Shuffle with your story question in mind.
- When you feel ready, draw cards and interpret them for your answers.
If you don't yet have a deck, you can go to randomtarotcard.com and click the deck for a random card draw.
Different Ways to Interpret the Cards
- Visual Interpretation: Look at the images and symbols present on the cards. What jumps out at you? What ideas and associations do the visuals trigger related to your question? Often just looking at the imagery can help you pull ideas from your subconscious. You can connect and combine these with what you already had in mind.
- Traditional Card Meaning Interpretation: Look up the card's meaning for further insight. You can use the guidebook that came with your deck, a site like Tarot.com, or the Storytellers Tarot Reference Guide in Tarot for Fiction Writers. I like to look at several different guidebooks for ideas.
- Combination: Combine these two methods and journal or jot down notes.
The Prompt
Nostalgia: What does your character experience in the next scene that elicits nostalgia? What do they feel nostalgic about? Draw one to three cards.
Want more spreads like this to help with your creative process?
Check out the full book Tarot Spreads for Fiction Writers with 200+ prompts to help you deepen your characters, develop unforgettable plots, and get you unstuck.
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