Use the Tarot and FoF to develop your fictional characters further.
Hidden Character Expectations Mode
This Mode uses the Intentional or the Magick Mod and can use the Signifer Mod.
Use this Mode better develop your fictional characters.
This spread comes from the book Creating a Life Together and is derived from art therapy. Originally it was meant to be a series of writing prompts intended to access your unconscious mind by answering the questions as fast as you can, writing with your non-dominant hand. Instead, we’ve repurposed it to reveal expectations a character/person has that they may not be aware of.
- Choose which deck of FoF you would like to use and which Mod.
- (Optional) Choose a Signifier Card for you character and place that on a table.
- Shuffle and draw a card for each of the questions below, and then line the drawn cards up in 4 rows of 4 cards.
- Use the prompts on the cards as well as your preferred Tarot card meaning resources to read the cards to find the answers to these questions about a certain character. For more inspiration on reading the cards to inspire your writing, we recommend this numerology source and this Tarot resource.
- Write out the questions and cards and your reading of them on a computer or in a notebook for use later. You can do this spread for as many characters as you wish.
- What do they want more than anything for themselves?
- What do they want more than anything for the world?
- What do they want more than anything for their children/the future?
- What do other people do that hurts them?
- What do they fear?
- What makes them mad?
- What makes them cry?
- If they could go back in their childhood and change their mother (or primary female caretaker), what would they change?
- If they could go back in your childhood and change their father (or primary male caretaker), what would they change?
- What didn’t they get as a child?
- If they could make something in their childhood better, what would it be?
- If they could make something in their childhood go away, what would it be?
- What do they need to feel safe?
- What do they need to feel loved?
- What do they need to feel happy?
- What kind of community do they want?
Character Development Mode:
This gameplay Mode uses the Magick Mod or the Intentional Mod.
This Spread is helpful for developing your fictional character in relation to the story’s conflict and plot. It can also help with finding their Signifier Card.
- Choose which deck(s) of FoF you would like to use and what Mod.
- Shuffle and draw 7 cards, then arrange them on a table like the spread in the photo above.
- Write down the card sequence prompts above and the cards dealt with the accompanying upright Topic or Situation Prompts according to your chosen Mod. If using the Intentional Mod, choose the orientation and upright prompts for your drawn cards as your read and interpret the spread.
- Write about each card and its corresponding question. For more inspiration on reading the cards to inspire your writing, we recommend this numerology source and this Tarot resource.
- Repeat for as many characters as you wish.
Character Signifier Mode
To help further develop your understanding of your character’s personalities, you can find a card that is their signifier.
Now, it is a bit of a tangent, but this all relates to semiotics. The term “semiotics” comes from the Greek root, seme, as in semeiotikos, an interpreter of signs. The Tarot cards are chock full of signs and Tarot readers are interpreters of these signs, they are, semioticians. Tarot readers use the term Signifer to serve multiple functions—as a image that represents themselves/another person/a character in a reading, to symbolize an object, a dilemma, or decision with which you/they are dealing, and from which you/they seek a resolution. Some spreads call for a signifier, some don’t, in many they are optional. Using a signifier in a reading personalizes the reading, and helps put an image to the concept in your head of this character or dilemma that only you know, as well as direct your query and reading more pointedly about a particular character/object/dilemma/decision etc.
In the field of Semiotics, the philosopher Ferdinand de Saussure explained that a sign (sound-image or word) was not only a sound-image but also a concept. A word is not just a word, it also the concept it stands in for. Thus he divided the sign into two components: the signifier (or “sound-image”) and the signified (or “concept”).
Signifiers in the Tarot are cards (images) that stand in for the signified (concept or person) the reading is about.
There are many ways to choose a signifier.
You can simply look through the court cards and find one that matches your character based on age, gender and physical characteristics, or you can go by the character’s personality and corresponding occidental zodiac sign to find their elements and therefore suit that fits them. Or you could base it off their Myers Briggs personality type.
You can also choose a Major Arcana card as a signifier, based off the archetype this person/character represents. Maybe they are a father figure, the Emperor would be a good choice for that character. Or you can choose a Major Arcana signifier based on the stage of life they’re in or the life experiences they are going through. Maybe they are going through a streak of bad luck? The Wheel of Fortune reversed would be a good signifier.
Or you can always go for randomness! Shuffle the cards, pick out one card, asking the cards for the signifier. A more developed version with this we have been playing with is doing the Character Development Spread above and looking closely at the Major Arcana and court cards that appear in that reading, and choosing the best fit among them for your character’s signifier.
Some people will put the signifier to the side, some will put it in the middle of the reading and draw cards around it, it’s up to you. Where you place the card can have interesting interactions with the other cards in a reading. Maybe the figure in the card is facing towards one card, and away from another? Maybe the card it’s facing, the figure in that is facing away from the signifier card. This could point to a challenging relationship or interaction. When not using the signifier in a spread but you see it come up in other spreads, either about the plot, another character, or this character, you know the cards then are talking about that particular character.