Tickle the typewriter

Do you use the Tarot as inspiration for creative writing? Here are a few ideas:

• Remember the backwards story? You start with a card for the end, then the middle, then the beginning?)
• Draw a card and tell the beginning of the story. Now draw a second card for the end. What happens in between?
• Draw one card: if this card were the end of the story … ?
• Draw one card: if this were the middle of the story …?
• Draw two cards, one for a character and one for the beginning of the story. Now reverse the cards and read them again: “what went wrong?” (This works quite well to suggest how elements in either the character or the situation drive the story.)
• Choose from the elements below, and draw a card for each:
  • the beginning of it all
  • a need
  • a reason
  • a warning
  • a prediction
  • a disaster
  • an important person
  • an ending