Plot Building Writer's Spread

This is a spread I came up with when I was trying to create a plot for a story. Makes a great springboard!


2, 3, 4___6_______9______12
________/_______/_______/__\
_______/_______/_______/____\
1______5______8_______11___14______15
_______\_______\_______\____/
________\_______\_______\__/
_________7______10______13


1: Main Character
2, 3, 4: Supporting Characters
5: Setting
6: Setting Detail 1
7: Setting Detail 2
8: Conflict
9: Conflict Detail/Complication 1
10: Conflict Detail/Complication 2
11: The Plot Thickens (twists and turns)
12: Plot Thickening Detail 1
13: Plot Thickening Detail 2
14: The Crisis or Climax of the Story!
15: The Resolution of the Crisis (aka the Big Finish)

This was a really fun spread. I tried it three different times and each time the story just unfolded. One was a romance, one was a comedy and the other was a tragic drama. The key is to keep it flexible; if you'd rather use the detail cards for something specific - for example, to add or flesh out characters - why not? You might also consider separating the Court cards from the deck and shuffling them separately to use as character cards. I didn't do this, but it would be interesting. I found it helpful to lay all the cards out and then turn them over one at a time, telling the story out loud to myself as I turned the cards over. For me, seeing the cards already laid out like that builds suspense and stirs the imagination. There's a story waiting there just under that card, and I can't wait to see what it is!

Please let me know if you like this spread or find it useful.

Thanks so much for sharing this! It looks like a great spread.

this looks SHINY! thank you!

Hi, Intuition897!

I tried your spread this afternoon, and had a lot of fun with it! Certainly, I've got the broad strokes of a story come out of it, with plenty of flexibility as to whether I've plotted out a full story or an event.

I found that I conflated some of the spread positions together. Since I already know who my main character is, I used the first card to show me the character at the beginning of the story. It worked really well, and gave me a lovely scenario to start from.

I think I got a bit too much from the extra detail cards (9&10, 12&13) but I'd rather that than have too little! It's definitely a good spread for generating ideas, though, so thank you very much!

Glad to hear that others find it fun and useful, too!

Can't tell you how wonderfully fun this is