When the scene won't move, draw a card. Each one is a cryptic nudge — a way to come at the page sideways instead of head-on.
A hundred strategies. Tap the card to flip it.
Click to reveal a strategy
The original Oblique Strategies is a deck of printed cards created by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt, first published in 1975. Each card holds a phrase or cryptic remark — "over a hundred worthwhile dilemmas" meant to break a creative block by encouraging lateral thinking.
Musicians and artists kept the deck by the desk and turned a card whenever the work stalled, letting an oblique instruction knock them out of a rut and into an unexpected move.
This deck reimagines that idea for writers of fiction. The strategies aren't final, authoritative, or canonical. They're suggestions and jumping-off points — useful or not depending on the problem at hand and the person holding the card.
With gratitude to Eno & Schmidt.