Learn how to use tarot to balance universal and specific story elements to build characters readers won't forget.

What Makes a Character Unforgettable

Think about a character you love from a book, a TV show, or a movie. What made them stand out and stay with you? Chances are it wasn't just that they were clever or brave or funny. It was a combination of qualities that made them feel both familiar and very specific. You recognized something true in them, and they also did something you didn't see coming.

Finding that just-right combination of universal and specific is the engine behind memorable, resonant characters. And tarot is well-suited to help you build both.

Universals: The Bridge to Your Reader

Universal experiences and emotions are the things that connect us across backgrounds, genres, and circumstances. Failure. Loss. Insecurity. Unplanned upheaval. Taking something for granted until it's too late. Wrestling with competing parts of yourself. Love. These are the emotional through-lines that make a reader recognize your character as human, whether that character is a space marine, a wolf shifter, or a hair stylist.

Universals create familiarity, comfort, and empathy. When a reader sees their own experience reflected in a character, they lean in. They care. They keep reading.

Tarot cards are built from these archetypes. They reflect the full range of common human ups and downs: messy emotions, setbacks, progressions, triumphs, and tragedies. Pulling cards for prompts can remind you to weave these universal elements in, especially when you're deep in world-building or plot mechanics and the emotional layer has taken a back seat.

Specifics: The Thing That Makes Them Yours

If universals are what connect your character to the reader, specifics are what make the reader remember them. Specifics are the unexpected, personal-to-this-character details that no one else would have invented. They're what make your sexy fae prince different from every other sexy fae prince on the shelf.

The randomness involved in pulling tarot cards is especially useful here. A random draw can push you past your first instinct into combinations you may never have thought to put together. That unexpected pairing is often exactly where the most interesting character details live.

Practice: Character Triage

One of the most practical applications of this framework is triage: using it to diagnose a character problem after the fact. Beta readers and editors often give you the symptom without the diagnosis. Tarot can help you figure out what the character is actually missing.

If your feedback is that readers aren't connecting to your character, that's usually a universals problem. Your character may be too competent, too removed, or too singular to feel relatable. Drawing for universals can help you find the emotional vulnerability or shared experience that invites readers in.

In our slide deck we went through an example. The first was Fatima, an ultra-competent space marine who saves the world and loves her family. On paper, she's impressive. But there's nothing to grab onto emotionally. Drawing the Three of Cups as a prompt for universals opens up a whole different layer: maybe she feels like an outsider while everyone else on her crew has an easy camaraderie. Maybe the last time she let herself get close, she made a mistake and people died. Maybe the space cats on board love everyone but her. Maybe she's scared of fire. None of these details make her less competent. They just add a new dimension — something the reader can actually feel something about.

If your feedback is that readers can't tell your characters apart or aren't getting a strong sense of distinct personality, that's usually a specifics problem. Drawing for specifics can help you layer in the details that make a character pop off the page as a fully individual person.

Our slide deck example involved Dorian, a cocky alpha shifter and former FBI agent — one of five love interests in a Why Choose romance. His twin brother Colin is also cocky. Beta readers keep mixing them up. Drawing The Hierophant from the Wizards Tarot as a prompt for specifics generates possibilities: maybe under the hardened exterior, Dorian is a math nerd who still loves Dungeons & Dragons and was teased as a kid. Maybe he escaped a religious cult that trained him not to show emotion. Maybe some days he genuinely wishes he'd become a teacher instead of joining the FBI. Any one of those details makes him immediately, unmistakably himself.

When you do this on your own, use what lands to build characters that are both relatable and irreplaceable.

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