How I Create Tarot Spreads

Hello, and welcome back! I know its been a while since my last post, but I recently graduated from college, and so I wanted to spend as much time with my friends as possible before I left them.

However, I did not forget about Little Miss Pagan and will begin writing at my weekly schedule again,

Today, I wanted to share with you all how I create my Tarot spreads. I am an avid television fan, so most of the spreads I do are based on my favorite tv shows, so for today I am showing how I create those.

I will use my Murder House spread as an example, based on season one of American Horror Story.

The first thing I do is think of a symbol I associate with the show. I use this to determine how many cards will be in the spread, and to give it a shape. For the Murder House spread, I wanted it to look like a house, so I wanted to have four cards as the house, with a card at the top to be the roof,

Next, I chose the five characters I wanted to use, these are usually the main characters and my favorites, and sometimes I'll add cards if I feel I need to include people. For this spread, I chose to use Vivian, Ben, Violet, Tate, and Moira.

Once the characters are chosen, I decide which card they will be in the spread. For the one, four of the characters pair off in the show, so I decided to keep the four of them as the base, and set the last one as the roof. So Moira was the fifth card at the top, and I put Vivian and Ben as the two bottom-most cards, and Violet and Tate as the second row of cards. I decided to have the women on the left and men on the right, again just to give them some organization.

Once the order of the spread is created, I assign meaning or questions to the cards. For this, I think of major character themes or motivations. A lot of the time I'll look up quotes from or about that character to influence the question for that card.

I try to jot down two or three options for each card, and then choose the one that fits the best. For example, for Moira's card I came up with two options: one was about what messes you are cleaning up since she is a maid, and she also has a great quote about women always cleaning up messes, and the second thought I had was to be how people see you, again because as a character some people see her as a beautiful young woman, while others see her as a elderly woman.

So once I narrow down my favorite questions, I assign them to the cards, and the spread is done! For the Murder House spread, this is what I created for the cards:

1: (bottom left) Vivian: What scares you?
2: (bottom right) Ben: What are you hiding?
3: (second row left) Violet: What makes you brave?
4: (second row right) Tate: What is the darkness inside you?
5: (top) Moira: How do people see you?

I hope this helps other tv fans create Tarot spreads. What spreads have you created? I'd love to see them!