Teneice Durrant, creator of Tarot with Ten, will use various tarot and oracle decks to provide monthly readings for writers, with exercises on using imagery and intuition as prompts. February's prompt is all about the love interest.
Since we just finished Valentine’s Day, this month's tarot pull is intended to help generate some ideas around your protagonist's love interest.
There are three main elements to consider when getting started on the love interest (or any character, really): Personality, character strength, and character weakness. I will also pull a card for the major conflict or misunderstanding between the love interest and the protagonist.
Personality: Queen of Wands 
In the tarot, gender is just used to describe an energy. Kings are an active agent; I call it inspired action. Queens are a more receptive energy which I call divine reception. The Queen of Wands indicates a personality with natural charisma, someone who knows how to encourage and support other people and make them feel good about themselves. They are effortlessly stylish but not ostentatious. Someone who embodies the Queen of Wands knows exactly who they are and what they believe in.
The colors in the Queen of Wands card are predominantly yellow and orange, and the objects are a black cat, a staff, and sunflowers.
Character Strength: The Hermit 
The Hermit represents knowing one’s worth. The Hermit stands out in the open at the top of a hill, shining his light for everyone to see. Many think that the Hermit represents hiding away, taking some alone time, but in actuality, he holds the Star in his lantern: a wish come true. One only needs to hike up the hill to learn how to achieve this wish. The Hermit knows that the knowledge and experience they possess is valuable and does not give away the information to people who haven’t done the work. The Character’s strength is in not suffering fools.
The imagery in the Hermit includes a lantern and a star, a walking staff, and a vast expanse of open sky.
Character Weakness: The Magician 
The Magician is usually a card of manifestation and creating the life you want to live. However, when injured The Magician will use all the tools available to manipulate the people or situation. Think, gaslighting, narcissism, bald-faced lies. They will use anything in their environment to get what benefits them.
On the card, there are images of a pentacle (wealth), a cup (emotions), a sword (logic), and a wand (creativity). With a wave of the wand, the Magician creates a flourishing environment or a tangle of weeds.
The Major Conflict or Misunderstanding: Six of Pentacles
The Six of Pentacles is about a balancing out of resources or paying back a debt of money.
The images in the card depict a wealthy man handing out money to beggars. This could be Noblesse Oblige or genuine philanthropy, but for whatever reason, this distribution of money causes a big misunderstanding between the main character and their love interest.
I hope these cards open some doors for you as you develop the love interest in your own stories. Next month, we'll talk about antagonists. Until then, here's how to find me outside of the Center:
Podcast anchor.fm/tarotwithten
YouTube Tarot with Ten
What did you think of this tarot reading and the cards as visual prompts for story development? Share with us in the comments, and contact us if you’re interested in working one-on-one with Teneice in writing with tarot.
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