Tarot and Oblique Strategies As Writing Prompts

Introduction

I have written about this before but find it is always good to revisit things because you may uncover new ideas.

While I am lucky enough to find inspiration from many sources, one of my greatest is in conversations with Vocal and Facebook friends. They don’t have to give me ideas, just talk about anything. It might be the weather or a TV show or what they had to eat or how good or bad work was.

That can start the creative flow going for me.

Essentially this article is going to be driven by Oblique Strategies and one of my Tarot decks, my Occult Tarot which a friend gave to me. So what we have is me writing about my method of creation while demonstrating it in how I have constructed this article So here we go.

Tarot - 4 of Pentacles - Valefor

“Tempts Thieves To Steal, Serves As An Excellent Familiar”

From this, I would say we should never plagiarise, but that does not mean you should not be influenced by other creators. Two of my favourite authors are Michael Moorcock and Clive Barker and I continually read their stories and will weave snippets of their tales into some of mine, either to kick off a story or make it a more sturdy story for my audience.

Also, it is always good to have someone who can look over your work and offer you useful constructive criticism or confirmation that you are on the right path

Oblique Strategies - Faced with a choice, do both

Often we do get in a quandary when we wonder which direction to take, should we write a story or a poem, and whether it should be a sonnet or a limerick. Oblique Strategies has suggested we do both, so make a start on multiple creations and eventually, the correct choice may manifest itself.

It may not but you will have put down several ideas that will further new creations for you.

Tarot - 2 of Pentacles - Amon

“Reveals the past and the future. Reconciles friends and enemies”

The future is what we are going to create and the past contains so many stories that we can weave into our new creations because they are ours. Friends are better to have than enemies and it is always best to reconcile with people you disagree with or have fallen out with because then you can work as a team, and start to build even more impressive works together.

Wars destroy. Working together builds.

Oblique Strategies - A line has two sides

If you are hit with a problem try and look at it in a different way. The phrase “A line has two sides” to me means there is a top and bottom, or a left and right, these are all ways of looking at a problem differently.

This is the path to take when you hit a creative brick wall. Refer back to asking a friend or collaborator, they will often see things differently than you do.

I always apply this in testing systems. If you write it you know what you are expecting to come out of it, but others don’t because they are not in your head, so are likely to spot any faults in the system.

Tarot - 7 of Wands - Glasya-Labolas

“Causes murder and bloodshed. Tells of things to come. Causes the love of friends or enemies. Can make one invisible”

When you create people will ignore or dislike your work, but far more will love and eulogise it. The things to come, again are what you are going to create, and are likely to enhance the love of friends and maybe even get you some love from those that don’t like you. Of course while you are creating, effectively you will be invisible because you are in your own world.

Conclusion

While this piece really tells you nothing for definite I hope it has given you at least one idea, and this has been created prompted by a tarot deck and Oblique Strategies which you can use here