What are Narata Storytelling Cards?
Two hundred illustrated cards showing characters, locations, objects, situations, and other elements used in all kinds of stories in any genre or format; Narata Storytelling Cards is a powerful tool for brainstorming story projects.
Each Narata card has a title, image, and a field of associative terms. Just one card can immediately suggest characters, scenes, or whole story concepts, and several cards together play against each other, offering numerous and often astounding story possibilities.
Card Categories
There are ten Narata card categories: Character, Creature, Society, Goal, Activity, Situation, Event, Object, Location, and Meta. The Meta character collects concepts that are abstract or in other ways don’t fit neatly in one of the first nine categories.
There is no rigid method for using Narata Storytelling Cards in your story creation process.
Who Narata is for
Whether you’re a screenwriter, novelist, short story writer, filmmaker, visual artist, stand-up comedian, actor, advertising executive, art director, TV showrunner, songwriter, poet, playwright, game designer, roleplaying game master, comics creator, or any other kind of storyteller or creative person, Narata Storytelling Cards can help you work faster, better, and have more fun. Narata is your greatest ally in the battle against writer’s block!
“In olden times, having writerś block meant putting one’s neck on a block to have oneś head cut off.”
how to use Narata
There is no rigid method for using Narata Storytelling Cards in your story creation process. Whatever approach works for you is the right one. You can shuffle the deck, draw some random cards, and jot down ideas, or you can work methodically, developing a classical three-act story (or a freeform, alternative type story) by combining Character cards with Goal or Situation cards, giving you the main conflicts, and then fleshing out the story with Location and Object cards, and maybe work on possible thematic angles using the Meta cards in conjunction with other cards.
The booklet included with Narata Core Deck has some suggested approaches for working with Narata, and you can visit our Plotting Blog for more ideas and information. Three Card Story Idea is a good starting point.
How to get Narata Storytelling Cards
You can get your copy of Narata Storytelling Cards HERE.
The Future of Narata
We have several Narata Expansion Decks in the pipeline. These are 50 card decks that focus on adding 50 new cards to a card category (Character, Situation, etc.) or 50 new cards in all categories but concentrate on a genre or setting; Thriller, Fantasy, Romance, Horror, WWII, Medieval Europe, etc.
Note that Narata Core Deck, consisting of 200 cards, has been designed to be fully functional on its own. You don’t have to get expansion decks to get great use out of Narata.
We are also working on a Narata Board Game, where a sizeable foldable board guides you through the process of developing a complete three-act story, and at some point, we’ll launch a software version of Narata.
