196: Planning the chapter-by-chapter outline for my upcoming romcom novella (Love By Design) with a Tarot spread

In this episode, your host and chick lit indie author Sagan Morrow shares a play-by-play of how she planned the entire chapter-by-chapter outline for her upcoming romcom novella (Love By Design) using a Tarot spread! 

Tune in to find out which Tarot cards were pulled to represent each of the 11 chapters for this novella, the meaning behind each of those cards, and how Sagan has translated each Tarot card’s interpretation to the story on the page. 

Resources mentioned in this episode: 

• Small Town Stilettos: a modern marriage of convenience (the prequel to Love By Design): https://books2read.com/u/bxP5gl 
• More “why choose” chick lit novels — the Polyamorous Passions series and Small Town Stilettos: SaganMorrow.com/books 
• Connect with Sagan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saganlives 
• Connect with Sagan on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@saganlives 
• Tune into ALL episodes of the Author Diary Entries podcast at https://saganmorrow.com/podcast 

Transcript

You’re listening to the Author Diary Entries podcast. I’m your host, Sagan Morrow, and this is episode #196. Access the show notes and transcript of this episode at SaganMorrow.com/podcast. 

Over the past couple months, I’ve immersed myself fully in working on my next romcom novella, Love By Design. It has been a beautiful experience. This is the easiest book I’ve written so far, which has been such a joy and a relief, because the last book I wrote — Kiss Me, Book 8 in the Polyamorous Passions series — was the HARDEST book for me to write! 

I want to share a lot more behind the scenes of the experience with writing Love By Design in the coming episodes, and — since it’s part of the Small Town Stilettos duology — I want to get into the really fun ways in which the two books mirror one another. For today, we’re going to focus on what the planning process was like. I’m not going to really tell you much about the book itself; we’ll save that for a future episode!

I already knew the general premise of Love By Design before I even finished writing Small Town Stilettos (which was published 3 years ago). And, since I wanted Love By Design to mirror Small Town Stilettos, I knew that this book needed to be 11 chapters long (just like Small Town Stilettos). 

So with that in mind, a few months ago when I created my chapter outline, I basically looked at is as: “Here’s the overall arc of what I want from the story; the general concept. How is it all going to unfold?” 

I had some very vague ideas, BUT not a lot of specifics. And I wanted to try something new for the planning process of this book… I wanted to try putting together the book outline using a Tarot spread! I created my own “Book Outline Spread” in which I pulled 11 cards, each representing a different chapter of the book. 

The concept here was that by doing a Tarot spread, I’d tease out the ideas of the beats of the story and what happens in each chapter and the vibe of each chapter, based on the Tarot card that represented each chapter. And it was beautiful to see the ways in which my overall concepts and thoughts for this story were reflected in the cards that I pulled!

Let’s go through those Tarot cards together…

Chapter 1: Ace of Swords. 

This card is all about new beginnings, and it can have a strong emotional force to it; it’s an invitation to step into your own. The Ace of Swords is often associated with almost a bolt of lightning sort of “aha” moment of clarity. 

What I loved about the Ace of Swords showing up for Chapter 1 is that the entire first chapter is all about the main character arriving in a new town to start a brand-new life… AND she meets her love interest who immediately sweeps her off her feet. 

The funny thing about this is that I’d already written Chapter 1, years ago. Immediately after I wrote Small Town Stilettos, I wrote the first chapter of Love By Design, as well as various other scenes. About half of those scenes didn’t make the final cut, and I did a fair number of rewrites and edits on the rest, but the Ace of Swords is an exquisite representation of Chapter 1.

Chapter 2: Queen of Pentacles. 

This is a card of a very nurturing environment; it’s a card associated with abundance and prosperity and a comforting, safe home life. It also has “Mother Nature” vibes to it. 

The way in which I translated this card into chapter 2 was by focusing on the main character’s new home life, and I had someone else take her under his wing; we are invited into the comforts of a budding friendship in the home. There’s also a big nature scene in this chapter to really round out the connection to the natural world.

Chapter 3: VI Wands.

This card can indicate external validation, optimism and confidence, and sort of a stepping stone toward one’s accomplishments. It encourages us to be proud of ourselves and not downplay our accomplishments or our abilities. 

How do we see this in the novel? Our main character learns to believe in herself after a moment of insecurity, and she also stands up for her convictions. She’s recognized for her talents by others, and she’s out and about in the community; we get to SEE her out in public, pursuing her dream, building her belief in herself and gaining confidence. 

Chapter 4: VIII Swords.

This card shows a woman dipping her toe in her emotions, but essentially trying to hide from it. She’s also blindfolded, and feels stuck and powerless; there can sometimes be damsel-in-distress connotations. Some Tarot readers believe that the VIII Swords shows up when we actually DO have the abilities within us to set ourselves free. 

I played more off of the feelings of being stuck and powerless for this chapter — we have a LITERAL damsel in distress moment in which the main character needs to be rescued by the love interest, and it’s SUCH A VIBE. This was one of my favourite scenes that was inspired by the Tarot cards; I had no idea that this scene was going to occur until I pulled this card and started thinking about how it might translate to the page. So that was fantastic! 

Chapter 5: Page of Swords.

This was another really fun one to build a scene around, because the Page of Swords can include the importance of holding your cards close to your chest, it can indicate overhearing things or spying on people, new information coming to light, looking over one’s shoulder to protect oneself, that kind of thing.

I wrote this into the story by having the main character overhear a conversation ABOUT HER — it’s so good! She overhears some pivotal information, but she doesn’t know WHAT she’s hearing. She misunderstands it.

The other piece that I wrote into this is that she’s betrayed by someone else because she OVERSHARES some information. And once again, I had no idea that was going to happen in this novel, until I pulled this card. Doing a chapter-by-chapter Tarot outline might be my new favourite way to plot a story!

Chapter 6: Ace of Wands.

This is another new beginning; it’s typically a very passionate card and often involves creative ventures.

I originally thought I might go for more of a sexual energy side of things, but as I wrote the chapter, it unfolded in a different way than I expected. I opted for more of the creative side in terms of the main character’s work, BUT the other side of it is there’s a very sweet, romantic moment that happens in which the main character and the love interest open up to each other and show more of themselves to each other — parts of themselves that no one else has ever seen. So that was I think a very lovely interpretation of the card, even if it's perhaps a bit unconventional of a choice.  

Chapter 7: The Empress.

This card is heavy on emotions, and there’s often an abundance of love here. Traditionally, children or some sort of nurturing comes into it as well; in the book Radical Tarot, the author talks about how there can be an erotic force of creation energy to it.

How does this fit into my novel? From the nurturing side of it, there is an interaction with a child! I think this is only the second time in the 10 books that I’ve written so far in which a character interacts with a child, which is pretty funny. 

At the end of the chapter, there’s also a sensual moment between the main character and her love interest… and what I really like about this is that the energy between the characters in that scene has an almost erotic vibe, directly connected back to a creative experience. I wrote that into the books WEEKS before reading Radical Tarot — I hadn’t heard of “erotic force of creation” angle of this card until reading that book. So I’m kind of obsessed that the vibe was already written into the story!

(Also: This book is a closed-door romance; when I say that there was an erotic vibe, I mean that more in the sense of the emotional tension on the page. Which is kind of one of my favourite things to write.)

Chapter 8: Strength.

This card is a balanced, inner or gentle form of strength; the idea that strength comes in many forms, and coaxing can be much stronger than the brittleness of force. Courage, compassion, and perseverance are often associated with this card.

Interestingly, Strength is sometimes viewed as a more ACTIVE version of The Empress, and we see this translate to the page because the main character makes a decision in this chapter to take matters into her own hands. 

The other aspect that happens in this chapter is that our main character comes up with a brilliant idea, things are really clicking into place, but she decides to take that coaxing sort of approach to it.

Originally, when I pulled this card, I thought that this chapter was going to be about boundaries, going for a hike and spending time with the dog, maybe an interaction with a wild animal. I ended up going in a very different direction! And I like how it unfolded. It’s not what I expected from Strength, but it works well.

Chapter 9: VIII Pentacles.

This card is all about diligence, typically putting in the effort to have mastery over one’s craft.

HOWEVER, Eight of Pentacles can also be about appreciation for where you’re at in the journey, the idea of not cutting corners, not giving up, the desire to shift into the next level.

Now, when I first pulled this card, I intended to go with the literal interpretation of the card and focus primarily on the main character’s job for this chapter. But then I scrapped that altogether. Instead, this chapter is entirely from the love interest’s point of view — my first dual POV ever in a book! — and it’s basically an opportunity to see things through his eyes, to understand what he’s actually been thinking and feeling this whole time. 

By the end of the chapter, he’s had a change in his outlook on life, and sees an entirely new path ahead for his future. So it’s a very interesting, different take on the Eight of Pentacles. We’re really leaning into the subtleties of the underlying messages of this card, rather than focusing so much on the traditional view of this card as being about working hard. 

Chapter 10: Queen of Cups.

With this card, we again see a toe in the water; the Queen of Cups is very close to the emotions surrounding her, but she’s not surrendering to her emotions. She is very compassionate and loving, very caring, but one of the most important aspects is she has a lid on her emotions. She is in control of herself.

The way that this translates to the page, in my novel, is that the main character is SO CLOSE to giving into temptation… but she has mastery over herself. She recognizes where she needs to not give into her feelings, for some pretty important reasons. She still feels very strongly, she’s full of love — but she doesn’t let those emotions rule her. 

Chapter 11: III Pentacles.

Again, we have the theme of work in this card, but in this case, the worker is already a master at their craft and they are being recognized by others around them. It’s often a card of teamwork and skilled labour, and potentially a new perspective, support from one another, and also a very strong foundation. 

In this chapter of my novel, we see the culmination of the main character’s work in the community, and everything truly does come together in this beautifully supportive environment with teamwork. 

One more detail that I thought was interesting about this Tarot spread as a chapter-by-chapter outline: We have two Queens AND The Empress. That’s a lot of strong nurturing energy and connection to nature. I ESPECIALLY love that we have the two Queens each as the second chapter AND the second-to-last chapter, and The Empress is the exact middle of the book. That balance is gorgeous! 

The other interesting note is that we have “8” cards: VIII Swords, VIII Pentacles, and Strength is also the eighth card of the Major Arcana. Cards associated with the number 8 are typically about movement, success, confidence, strength — and we really do see a lot of that in this book as a whole. 

So, there you have it: That was how I outlined my upcoming romcom novella, Love By Design! 

This process was very fun, and I intend to do Tarot readings for many more chapter outlines in future books. Coming up with ideas is one of my FAVOURITE things, and I love exploring all of the different possibilities and directions that a story can take — what I like about doing a Tarot spread as the chapter by chapter outline is that it directs the ideation process. It’s an interesting way to start thinking about, “If this card comes up in a romance novel, what could some of the connection points be? What are some of the different ways that this card could be interpreted?” It’s a sort of creative constraint that also expands possibility, because it can nudge you in a direction you hadn’t previously considered. I really like that! It’s very cool.

In some upcoming episodes, I’ll share with you about the writing and editing process for this novella (and I’ll let you know the actual details of the plot!), so I hope you’ll tune in for all of that! 

That’s a wrap on today’s episode! If you are enjoying the Author Diary Entries podcast, please take 2 minutes to rate and review it on your favourite podcast platform — it means so, so much to me when you do that.

Thanks so much — I appreciate you!