How to Script and Construct a Magic Show

Here’s one of the most common questions the magicians at the magic shop get asked:

‘How do I make a magic act,

that flows well and is correctly scripted?’

The magic shop is full of card tricks, coin tricks, big tricks, small tricks. There’s more tricks than any magician could ever hope to perform! Picking awesome tricks is the easy part. The hard part is building them together to create a professional act.

When you order a new trick, it usually comes with an instructional DVD or book, teaching you how to do it, but there’s usually something left out. The real secrets to improving your magic tricks:

How you perform your tricks.
What you say when you perform.
How you act and present yourself.
The way tricks fit together.

This knowledge is why you can watch two different magicians, both performing the same magic trick, and both doing the moves really well, but one will seem much more polished and entertaining than the other. The secret is in the scripting and the performers routine construction.

If you find you lack confidence performing your tricks, or freeze, when it comes to doing your tricks in front of people, you need to study how to present your magic, more than you need new tricks to perform.

The following books are core texts on the subject of making a script for a magic trick and how to improve your performance as a magician. They are required reading for any of the MoM magicians.

Strong Magic by Darwin Ortiz

Maximum Entertainment by Ken Weber

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Magic Tricks That Need No Explanation

by Dominic Reyes Leave a Comment

Magic Tricks That Need No Explanation

Have a quick look at this, it is a great street magic video, featuring very good magic tricks, well produced, and Hezi Dean clearly is a great, confident magician. Click on the video below, but turn the sound off. Then come back to us for a chat:

If you haven’t watched the video and are still reading, STOP! Go back and watch it, it is definitely worth a watch.

So… I take it you have watched it now. If not don’t worry, this blog post still puts the point across just not as nicely!

The whole point of this blog post is not to show you magic tricks that are so obvious they do not need explaining. It is more on the topic of how good magic tricks transcend the language barrier and need no explaining. I bet you watched the video and sank into his presentation watching every move, If you turned the sound off, the point will be very clear, even if you didn't, Hezi was speaking in Israeli but it did not confuse the issue if you didn't understand him. Hezi's presentation speaks for itself. This video is a great example of how good magic tricks need no words to be appreciated. Thank you, Hezi Dean!

Does this sort of universal communication come across in the magic tricks you perform?

Could you perform your close up act in conditions where your spectators can't hear you?

What small tweaks to your presentation would make each of your magic tricks easier to understand without patter?

How to Use Silence in Your Magic Tricks

by Merchant of Magic 1 Comment

Ways magicians add silence to their magic tricks

By Dominic Reyes

How magicians use silence, can be just as important as the words they say, when performing magic tricks. Let's look at how you can say less when you perform, but actually communicate more.

One of the best ways to improve your magic tricks is to develop an entertaining presentation and script. Magicians who want to be more than just average, need to progress their performance patter further than:

'Watch, erm, cool, check this out.., Yeah, watch this…'

A good script for a magic trick engages interest, focuses attention, misdirects and entertains. The script is made of sentences, carefully places in just the right order. However, a script isn't just about the sentences, it's about the gaps between them too. There are three main types of silence between lines in a magicians patter:

The Beat.

A beat is a small silent moment, often for just the count of one, or for just a second. It's a little hesitation before the next line, or the next action is started. Thinking about the 'beats' in your script can stop you constantly 'run the lines' and talking too fast. It helps create tempo-rhythm in your magic. For magicians, 'beats' create a moment for the magical event to occur. The magician lifts the cup to show the ball has returned under it. There is a 'beat' before his hand and cup move away.

The Pause.

Unlike a beat, the 'pause' is full of action. The magician pauses and in doing so, he or she communicates to the audience. Perhaps the magician stops and takes a breath. In pausing like this, the magician emphasizes what preceded the pause or even something that is about to follow.

In a sense, the word "pause" is incorrect because each moment of the pause is full — even when the magician is not saying anything, the pause is talking on behalf of the magician. The goal of a pause is to give something that is more powerful than a beat, or words could convey.

The start, length, and finish of silence matters.

How a magician starts a pause, its length and how it ends are also very important. When added to the script of a magic trick, attention to just one part of a pause without thought for the other two parts can ruin the power of the pause. A pause shouldn't get in the way of the action and dynamics of a magic trick. Within a scripted magic trick, it is much the same as musical notation in music.

Why magicians use silence in their magic tricks.

Using the pause device can have a dramatic affect on your magic. There are many ways to use a pause including:

Signal the importance of an instruction, or an object.
Create a moment for the spectators to experience a magical event that had just happened.
Allow the spectators time to react to a magic climax or prestige.
Communicate to the audience that a reaction is expected or due.
Focus attention on an event, idea or object used in the magic trick.
Draw attention to yourself before beginning a magic trick.
Signal that you are using your magical powers on something or someone.

DO THIS: Experiment with adding both pauses, and beats into the delivery of your magic tricks patter. Use your rehearsal time to explore how this changes the trick.

How does it influence the spectators attention?
How does it change your magic tricks tempo-rhythm?
How did pausing give your audience time to react to your magic?
Did adding structured silence stop you from performing too fast?

Record yourself performing some magic tricks whilst using different beats and pauses. See how that transforms the whole feel and pace of the magic tricks. Notice that every moment of a presentation matters. The pauses and silent moments are just as powerful as the lines you use.