The Adequate Blog

I’ve talked a bit about what makes a good trick for my silly little magic show… but there’s a process beyond the initial picking out of stuff…

Like I said in “Cheap Magic Rules ” - there’s a lot of ways to find good magic, the next problem one has to address is how to make that trick work for you as a performer.   Here’s an approximation of what happens when I decide I want to do a new bit:

Stage One: Infatuation

• I see a trick, maybe in a magazine, maybe online, maybe in person and think “Hey! That’s really neat! I’d like to do something like that!” or I become infatuated with an effect or a prop - if it’s a prop, it’s a prop I think I can make fit my character (That of the bumbling yet likable hack magician).
• I get some source material for the effect - following the Cheap Magic Rules, I research the bit online, in magazines, and compare what I see to what I have in my library - 90% of the time I find the mechanics for a similar effect in the Tarbell books.
• I start working on the effect, what I call “Flailing” - just to see if I can handle the mechanics. This also gives me a chance to determine if the trick will work in the environment I’m performing in (see Getting My Act Together ).  I’ll rough out a “script” with lines and blocking at this phase.
• If I think I can pull off the mechanics, I run the idea past my harshest critic and strongest supporter - my incredibly patient wife.  If it passes the “Wife” test, it might just be worth taking outside and put in front of an audience.

Stage Two: Initial Exposure

• I’ll take the trick out to one or two of the smaller faires I work - I’m lucky in that I have a gig that’s very close to home which I can use as a ‘testing ground’ to get immediate feedback from the crowd. This is also where my “script” begins to evolve based on how the audience reacts to lines and how feasible the blocking I laid out turns out to be when I take it out into the real world
• More review - I’ll go over the bit based on my perception of the crowd, the mechanics, and the advice of any friends in the audience (again, my amazingly patient wife) and tweak things here and there.
• Refinement - The tweaking occurs, and I prepare to take the bit out again

Stage Three: Additional Exposure

• For short-run faires where I have three or four shows a day, this is the “refinement lab” - I try the bit out in my show at various points in the proceedings, figuring out where it might fit into the flow
• More review, more tweaking - this is also where the “script” really comes into its own.
• Pass/Fail time - After two or three events, I have to be merciless: Does it work or doesn’t it? If it doesn’t, is that because of character, logistics, or is the trick just not that strong? If it’s strong but still needs… something… I’ll put it aside for more review later. If it turns out the trick isn’t for me… then it goes away and perhaps I wind up with an eBay auction sale.

Stage Four: Continual Evolution

• Every bit that’s in my Act As It Stands got there because it survived the first three stages of the process. From there, things continue to evolve and change. And if I find a new bit that’s stronger than one of the old bits, it gets retired to come back another day.

So that’s what happens, more or less. It’s really tough to get rid of a trick I’m enamored with, even if the trick doesn’t fit properly. That’s known as “killing your darlings” and it’s really not easy.

I’ll yammer a bit about Infatuations of Magic in a while…

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