Your Character's Tarot: a storycraft workshop

This post is part of a series to augment the Tips for Writing Fiction available for free download.

This and other writing workshops are gathered in my Workshops Directory for you to explore.

Find more tarot-related content in my Tarot Gallery.

Whether or not you subscribe to the mystical side of tarot, it remains a fantastic characterization tool. Tarot readings provide an in-depth snapshot of a person and what their life is like, as well as the influences driving them into the future.

A normal reading comes together through a skilled interpreter and the overturning of cards in a meaningful order (positioned in what's called a tarot spread). But to do a tarot spread for your characters, all you need is to fill out this worksheet with your insights and ideas.

The exercise evolves from your character's personality, through external and internal circumstances, to their most likely future. This forces you to explore all the facets of a character before deciding where they'll end up, and creates room for inspiration to strike before you finalize the outcome.

Print out the tarot spread worksheet, or divide a blank page into the spaces shown. Fill out each space in the following order, with the details that come to you:

1. Personality (center) - Write your character's name, and fill out everything you can about their personality. Include who they consider themselves to be, the labels they use for themselves, and their current stage of personal growth.

2. Obstacles (center left) - Write down the obstacles your character faces within their stage of personal growth. Also include any habits that dominate the character's behavior or mentality.

2b. Must (center right) - Fill in what your character needs to realize, experience, or decide to do in order to overcome these obstacles.

3. Currently (top-center) - Write everything going on in your character's life right now. Include the major plot events that impact the character, as well as any specific situations the character is dealing with.

4. Was (bottom-center) - Fill out things from the character's past that shaped the events you listed in Currently. Also write down any past events that will come into play for this character as the story unfolds, and who your character was at the time of those events, if their personality has since evolved.

Check these Tips for Writing Fiction to see more workshops!

5. Influences (right-center) - Write down all the factors that are influencing this character. These factors can be other people and their motivations, external events shaping the plot, or the character's own suspicions, ambitions, hesitations, and desires. Include anything that shapes how the Currently events will unfold.

6. Develops (left-center) - Fill in how your character develops from their Currently stage into the future. Include their realizations, decisions, response to being influenced, and any other changes within your character as events unfold. Do not write future events here! Use internal developments only.

Now you have a basic snapshot of your character's experiences, situations, and growth. These are externally-driven, for the most part. The remaining spaces explore internal factors that shape your character's reactions to external events, and where the natural momentum of the story is carrying them.

7. Attitude (bottom-right) - Write about your character's attitude in general--are they a cheerful person, or more sour? Do they expect things to go well, or go wrong? Fill in all defining mental characteristics, and with remaining room, their attitude toward specific Currently events.

8. Others (top-right) - Write how others in the story see this character. Start with friends and family, and fill out how they judge your character and their Currently events. Then explore more distant acquaintances--who hates this character, and why? If the character's famous, how does the public feel? Include anything that comes to mind about the opinions of others.

9. Hopes and Fears (top-left) - Fill out everything your character is hoping for or afraid of. Start with general hopes and fears, then fill in their feelings on specific Currently events--are they striving to create a good outcome, or to prevent a bad one? These innermost drives focus your character's decisions and bring about the story's future events.

10. Future (bottom-left) - Write down the events that unfold for your character. Reflect on how this future fits in--does it seem like a natural progression, or unexpected and externally-driven? Readers find comfort in a logical resolution, and expect a story to continue until the characters meet a fitting end. An externally-driven future is less satisfying, but often belies a sequel.

For every book in my Tales of the Known World saga, I do one of these tarot spreads for each character, large or small. It sets the stage for the story to unfold, and allows me to bring hazy characters into clarity and precision. If I'm having trouble on a given scene, I use this exercise to pin down the exact stages of character development at that time.


That's it for this post! Check out the latest writing workshops for more.

Download Tips for Writing Fiction here, or start your adventure below.

---

Life is an adventure.
Are You Ready?

Liked this? Share, please!

Kholl: a map for Awakening

This post is Part 2 of a series to augment the Atlas of the Known World available for free download. Start with Part 1 here.

This and other TotKW maps are gathered in my Map Directory for you to explore.

Enjoy!

Kholl

A bleak, frigid land at the edge of the world.

Geography and Climate

In Part 1 of Awakening, Kholl is a frigid land at the northeastern edge of the Known World. Each dark, brutal winter thaws into the gray drizzle of summer daylight, but little sunshine strikes the embittered land. The crags of the Khollek Mountains in the west crumble into the cold sand dunes of the Heleki Desert in the east, and the whole continent is windswept and barren.

This region also borders the Katei Ocean, the Kondak Sea, and the Unknown East.

Flora and Fauna

The Khollic wasteland is inhospitable to most lifeforms. The cold shale mountains and crumbling sands prevent most plants from taking root, and Kholl supports little animal life. Though a few dragons dwell on the highest crags, they survive mostly on fish plucked from the sea, or on domesticated wyverns stolen from their pens. In the cold desert, the largest native animal is the arctic fox, which preys on mice, insects, and the occasional bony hare.

People and Dress

The humans of this northern land are isolated from most of the Known World. Their dark hair, tanned skin, and narrow eyes protect them from biting winds and the blinding glare of reflections off the ice. Though both the mountain and desert men share ancestors, the arrival of Colkh'rak forces three centuries ago forever split them apart. Those who stayed in the mountains became slaves of their foreign invaders, and dissenters fled into the desert, forming a watchful rebel alliance. While the mountain men can access clothing and other goods imported from Kanata, the free men of the desert make due with the small animal hides available. In hard times, the desert peoples resort to wearing fish skins and weaving clothes from the fibrous kelp dredged from surrounding seas.

Native Magic

Though all races of men access the same cocktail of magics, the men of Kholl manifest much weaker animal magic than the men of other regions. In exchange, they display exceptional sensory abilities, using flavor magics to enhance meager diets and their latent control of light to veil rebel encampments from their Colkh'rak overlords. Khollic men also enjoy greater access to elemental powers than the men of other lands, but their enhanced earth skills in turn augment their latent propensity for dark magic.

Check out the Magic Codex of the Known World to learn more.

Cultural Values and Traditions

The enslaved men of Kholl have mostly assimilated into the Colkh'rak culture, but Kholl's free men keep their ancient traditions alive. They place great emphasis on liberty and independence, virtues they find worth fighting and dying for. They live in large family clans, and each village self-governs with a council of the senior members of resident clans. While magic is part of everyday life, those born without strong magic skills are seen as destined for true greatness. Desert men push their non-magic clan members to excel at crucial tasks such as fishing, combat, and weapons-making. No matter their rank or ability, all men are considered equal, and it is a grave offense to issue orders to a fellow man. This impugns a man's liberty and demeans his independence before the clan, especially if the orders are given in public.

The desert men measure their age in years, with the new year beginning on the summer solstice. Coming-of-age is celebrated within each clan, and though ceremonies differ, it always involves a demonstration of the youth's mastery of a vital skill or virtue, followed by a clan-wide feast. Some clans require youths to prove their bravery or cunning, while others expect the youth to venture into the wilderness and return with a trophy of sorts. Certain clans stage an indoor battle for the youth to engage in, and the subsequent celebration is delayed, often for weeks on end, until the youth emerges victorious. As adults, desert men and women must contribute to the survival of the clan, particularly by providing for and training the clan's children.

Warriors and Guardians

The men and women of the desert all fight, though the residents of Olyagen are considered the most skillful in combat. This rebel encampment is closest to Kholl's western mountains, where the Colkh'rak overlords reign supreme. Since freedom is paramount to the desert clans, all adults are expected to prove worthwhile in battle, which is their first and often only line of defense against tyranny. Though skirmishes are commonplace, the free men of Kholl stand united under one banner, and there is no warring amongst clans or villages. Combat skills are imparted from a young age, and a man's prowess in combat is linked to his ability to retain freedom at all costs. The most sought-after women are highly-trained warriors, and a husband is considered greatly blessed if his wife can defeat him in combat.

Languages

Kholl is a land of two languages. The free men of the desert speak their ancestral tongue, Heleki, a rather lyrical language descended from the ancient tongue of men. The enslaved denizens of the mountains speak Khollic, a harsh and sibilant language derived from the blending of their ancestral tongue, Trophek, into the language of their Colkh'rak overlords. Though neither Khollic nor Heleki is intelligible to the speakers of Allanic in the rest of the Known World, the Heleki tongue sounds somewhat related, and many Heleki words share similar roots. Khollic, however, sounds completely alien to both Allanic and Heleki speakers alike, and is often described as severely lacking in discernible vowels.

Check out the Language Codex of the Known World to learn more.

Characters from The Known World

In the book Awakening, Jorn is a stablehand enslaved in the Khollek Mountains by dark masters.

Though he cannot remember his family, Jorn made a home for himself amongst the racing dragons he attends.

But his world turns upside-down one night when a new slave named Larin escapes the master's keep and hides in Jorn's stable.

When he finds her beneath the straw in a dragon's stall, Jorn decides to help her and unwittingly launches them on a journey that changes the course of history.

That's it for this post! Up Next: Land of icy crags and broken shale...

Download the Atlas of the Known World here, or start your adventure below.

---

Life is an adventure.
Are You Ready?

Liked this? Share, please!

Control Your Flow: a wordsmith workshop

This post is Part 2 of a series to augment the Tips for Writing Fiction available for free download. Start with Part 1 here.

This and other writing workshops are gathered in my Workshops Directory for you to explore.

Find my world workshops in the Worldbuilding Directory.

In Part 1 of this series, we talked about the storycraft aspects of flow - what flow is, why it should fluctuate, and where to adjust it for best effect. Now, we get down to the nitty gritty of how to use language to control your flow.

First, the basics! Each scene of your tale has its own natural flow, determined by content and the way you tell the story. Action, plot events, excitement, and suspense naturally flow fast, while introspection, description, and other exposition slow down your natural flow. Certain scenes require a slower flow, and provided you've structured your story to build good momentum, you can use action and exposition to regulate your pace.

However, a faster flow is crucial for battles, escapes, and other plot-driven scenes. Too much exposition makes your story clumsy, but no exposition at all confuses readers. This balance is especially delicate in your opening scene, where you want to engage readers with action and excitement. How can you deliver a fast-paced flow without surrendering all your explanations?

The answer is to avoid devoting full sentences to exposition. Instead, parse your descriptions into a few words or key phrase, and attach those words to exciting sentences. Break up exposition into bite-sized chunks that don't impede the natural flow of the action.

Check these Tips for Writing Fiction to see more workshops!

This preserves the momentum of the story, instead of causing your scene to stumble. The following example sentences from my Tales of the Known World saga demonstrate this principle in action:

Example 1: Head and shoulders above the dark-haired crowd, [Haisrir] made a fist to bid again, his handsome features contorting into a crazed smirk when he noticed Larin's scrutiny.

- excerpt from Chapter 1 of Awakening

In this sentence, the important actions are a) Haisrir places another bid, and b) he catches Larin studying him. But by attaching extra words to these events, I sneak in some description without bogging down the scene. With little effort, you absorb that the crowd is dark-haired, and that Haisrir is tall and handsome. You also encounter his crazed smirk, which characterizes him better than a whole sentence about how manic and cruel he seems.

Some descriptions can't be parsed without losing important connotations. You can streamline a lone sentence of exposition by using active verbs instead of descriptive verbs.

Example 2: Polished silver capped the sharp points of his backswept ears, and his pale yellow horsetail shone white in the overcast glare of midmorning.

- excerpt from Chapter 1 of Awakening

There is no event in this whole sentence, but it delivers description in the guise of action. The silver capped his ears, and his hair shone white--both inert objects seem more interesting as the subjects of active verbs. This creates a faster flow than a sentence like, "His pointed ears were capped with silver, and his hair was so blond it looked almost white."

Streamlined sentences bear extra description better than traditional counterparts. Compare Example 2 to a similar description: "He had backswept ears with sharp points, which were capped in polished silver, and his yellow horsetail was so pale it looked almost white in the overcast glare of midmorning." Though it imparts the same details, this construction lacks the punch of Example 2, and impedes the natural flow of the action.

Everyone's wordsmith style is different, but you can start by targeting is/are/was/were sentences in your story. By eliminating these words, you'll weave your exposition in new ways, either by affixing details to action sentences (as in Example 1), or by wording your descriptive sentences with active verbs (as in Example 2). How and when you decide to break from this guideline is a matter of style, but you'll develop your own sense of what scenes require these techniques.


That's it for this series! Check out the latest writing workshops for more.

Download Tips for Writing Fiction here, or start your adventure below.

---

Life is an adventure.
Are You Ready?

Liked this? Share, please!

Portent II of Awakening: a riddle in rhyme

In the novel Awakening, there are 23 portents fortelling the events of the unfolding saga.

Start with Portent I here.

These and other riddles in rhyme are gathered in the Portents Directory for you to explore.

Enjoy!

Through razor's edge of knowledge bought
Of timeless time congealed
With cold deceit the master culled
His destiny long concealed

To piercing realm of shadows fell
In terror burden reaps
With lover's spark ignites the dark
A pawn as the legend weeps

Surrendered gate the golden word
To portent's deathly creed
Awakening the tide of grief
And forfeiting soul to bleed.


Can you decode the future Tales of the Known World?

Share your interpretation!
Comment below with your take on this portent.

This portent appears at the start of Part 4 of Awakening, and it foretells the ending of the first book in the TotKW saga. Its three stanzas mirror the three chapters of Part 4, and it deals with the deathly betrayals surrounding the ultimate unbinding of A'lara City. Can you guess what destiny the master culled?

---

Download the Prophesy Appendix:

The merfolk culture is built on the prophetic Gift. Nearly all men produce a portent every twenty days, and they devote their lives to interpretation. For more about the role and inner workings of prophesy, check out the Prophesy Appendix above.

---

Alongside every prophesy is an attribution block. This block contains a byline giving the name of the person who said the prophesy, and a dateline giving the day the prophesy was first said. Here is the attribution for this portent:

Dohsyn Viryahni Dynde XX
2:2:2:1/3, 1:1:2 IX
V 2:2:2:2/5, III:IX

The portent attributed here has been interpreted, and it references multiple events that culminate on an exact date. An additional verified dateline has been added to the attribution, noting the final date when the portent comes to pass.


That's it for this post! Up Next: To waning light without the chance...

For the Prophesy Appendix, enter your email above.

---

Life is an adventure.
Are You Ready?

Liked this? Share, please!