TLDL: Too Long Didn't Listen

Magic scripting suffers from the worst cliché. 

 Elaborate story, demonstrated by a menial or somewhat unrelated prop. 

 Let me explain with an example. 

 

[ Audience falls asleep ] 

 2 minutes later the magician concludes…

“Let me show you what I mean using these 4 jacks” 

 [ Magician proceeds to pull out a deck of cards ] 

 

Or, something that's even worse…  

 

That kind of scripting within magic makes my skin crawl. 

 

EXPECTATIONS vs REALITY 

Expectations and reality need to be misaligned during magic, but the reality MUST exceed their expectations. Not the other way around. 

A long, sprawling script with twists and turns, used to frame a simple 4 card trick is grossly unbalanced. It builds the expectations that the reality will not meet. 

Now I’m not saying there isn’t a place for scripting in magic, but there needs to be the right script. 

Peter Turner has a fantastic ‘any card at any number’ trick, probably one of the best I’ve ever seen. 

The script is talking about Santa Claus and belief - and having your beliefs crushed by revelations of truth. 

At the end of the effect, when they deal down to the card at that number, he asks his audience if they want to believe it’s really their card or, like Santa Claus, spoil a potential lie. 

I’ve seen him perform it over 50 times in the decade that I’ve known him - and the majority of people don’t turn the card over. They choose to believe in the magic and the reality becomes more than just a card trick. It’s a regression to a childhood state of belief & wonder.

With this scripting, their expectations are dramatically lowered - and they’re 90% happy to just believe and 10% sure that it wasn’t their card anyway. 

As Pete throws the card back into the deck, he flashes it… It is their card. 

The reality smashes their expectations to bits, and the audience leaves that performance thinking “magic must be real.”  

 

"WHO THE **** ARE YOU THOUGH?" 

Now, of course, I’m no expert on scripting magic, or even performing it for that matter... But I am an expert in watching magic.

I see hundreds of tricks per week. I get submitted thousands of presentations & methods per year. 

… and I’m telling you, some of it bores me to death. Because I have to sit through 4 minutes of irrelevant script on the holocaust for an audience member to then be asked to “take any card”. 

 Magic should be better than that. It CAN be better than that. 

The reason David Blaine has made the impact he has on magic, is that he seems to have no script. He is real. He keeps the audience's expectations low. 

Then, the reality of the miracles he can perform is off the charts. It exceeds their expectations by such a large distance, that it becomes powerful. It becomes magical. 

 

CHALLENGE 

My challenge for you today is to re-evaluate the magic in your repertoire. 

• Do you have any sprawling stories of irrelevance that can be rewritten? 
• Are you trying to inject deep meaning into something as simple as a ‘pick a card, find a card’ trick? 
• Can your script be simpler? 
• Can you engage your audience better, by saying less & doing more? 
• Does your plot exist to facilitate the gimmick? Instead of your gimmick existing to facilitate the prop. 

 

 Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

 

---

To celebrate the launch of Ellusionist’s new website, we’re giving customers 40% OFF their order using coupon code ‘DIFFERENT’. Or just click this link for it to apply.  Offer ends this week.

---