I find the actual patter development for tricks difficult. Does any one have comments on the creative process? For example how they look for it.

Look for what appeals to the audience that you mostly play to. Look also at what will fit you and your character naturally.

I thought I would share with you some thoughts on thinking creatively. Being an artist and a magician, I often get asked by people and students in my SYM assembly, how do you think creatively and how do you come up with acts and routines that are different from the norm?

Because of my art background, I think it has really taught me how to think about my magic in a totally different fashion then I think most people do. It has allowed me to be more open and creative and not feel like my ideas are being forced through a funnel.
Being an artist, I always say the only difference between an artist and anyone else is the fact that I have learned to SEE. People shake their heads and do not often understand what I mean by that.

Let me try and explain. Learning to see is far more then just looking and saying I understand what I am looking at. For example: a person is told to draw a tree. They do not look at the tree or understand the tree at all. Their brains are programmed that a tree looks a certain way and so they draw what their minds have registered a tree is supposed to look like. BUT, they are not really seeing it at all. Their minds have already placed in their subconscious a preconceived image. Whenever someone says tree, this image pops into their head and completes the thought.

But that image is not truly how THAT particular tree looks. You’re really not seeing at all. You’re seeing while wearing blinders. You come to realize that every tree is different from the other. The texture is different, the branches and color, how the atmosphere interacts with it and so on and so forth.

So learning to see is all about opening up your mind to really study something and to looking past the obvious. You force your brain not to construct these preconceived images but tell it to look at every tree as a different object entirely. It is a tough process to do but anyone can learn to do it.

This way of thinking and seeing is how I tend to view everything now. It has helped me to always observe and to be open to any thoughts and ideas for my own magic. Because of this, I feel my magic has become much more creative and entertaining and has become more of an extension of myself and my personality and character on stage.

I get ideas for my magic from anywhere and everything. I do not get my ideas for magic from magic. That sounds funny but it is so true. I find that my ideas come from nature, culture, music and just about anything. Even a cool shape of furniture can spark an idea or generate a thought. When you learn to open yourself up in this manner, you will find that your mind is more free to truly create something new and different.

Too many of us tend to look at the wrong things for inspiration. We are so used to going to our magic videos or books or acts we have seen in the past. This is fine to get yourself excited about the project, but it tends to force you in a certain direction of copying or mimicking what you see. It limits you greatly.

The best suggestion to thinking creatively is to not go to the magic books or the videos just yet. Step away from it totally. Open yourself up to exploring the idea or object yourself and you will be amazed at what ideas you can generate.

I hope this has helped give you some ideas on how to think creatively and I would love to hear back from anyone else who has done this or who has their own ways of being creative.

Kyle

Hi Imagine:

I agree with everything Kyle says here! I can also refer to a few sources that have really helped me learn lately - I found them to be extremely helpful in coming up with a process for routining/scripting.

1. "Find the Stuff that's You" by Chris Carey.
2. "Maximum Entertainment" by Ken Weber
3. "Routining Entertaining Magic" audio tape by Brian Flora
4. Ron Bauer series of booklets.

Also, Barry Richards has a book, "The Magic of Thinking Creatively" which I plan on getting soon. All reviews say it's excellent.

I hope this helps to get you started.

Ron

I go at it backwards...I come up with the art concept FIRST and then find the magic to fit...once I decide on the effects...then I write the script and original material...

Here's one of the 5 ideas I'm working on at present

http://home.nethere.net/darkrider/LIONPO~1/Xmosis.html

It may or may not be close to the final choice or it might be dead on or discarded.

If you access this link a month from now or so, or less...it may not still be there.

Oh yeah...I changed my user name from darkrider...I get bored easily.

The biggest aid for me is asking why?
Why are you doing what you are doing and why do you need to use the things your using.
The best example I have of this is how I developed my multiplying bottle routine. I had alsways loved the trick but hated the presentation. Looking at the prop I asked myself "Why would the bottle and glass trade places?"
A small voice in the back of my head then reminded me about the Hiezenberg uncertianty principle which states that by observing an event you change it.
Once I had a reason that the bottles would move the rest of the routine fell into place and became a demonstration of Quantum Mechanics.
Also it is a lot easier to work up new material if you hae a character or theme to work with.
Look outside the world of magic for your inspiriation.

It takes me forever. Till I forget. And then sometimes I get to see the story. And sometimes I can then remember the story well enough to tell it later.

I have found, since becoming the medicine-show guy, that all of my scripts are driven by character. The character drives my choice of effects, the scripts for the effects are obvious because that is what the character would say.

I think the problem with coming up with scripts can be solved by deciding who you are. If you start with thinking that you'd like to do this effect from that book and that other effect from the video you just got, and think you can string it together with "I'm a magician" as the glue, it's going to be very difficult. Look at the magicians that you really like and see how everything fits their character and personality. If you can figure out who you are (difficult) and how you come across to other people (very difficult, you have to hear from other people about this), the rest is easy by comparison.

A book that I have found very useful is Magic and Showmanship by Henning Nelms. He emphasizes the importance of a theme or framework for your magical effects. This helps you decide on your character. After that, the script is pretty straightforward.

Yours,

Paul

Paul, what do you do if your character starts a trick and takes it into a different direction?

Johnathan,

If you mean in performance, that does happen. I have learned to perform on the balls of my feet, and to react in character to the unexpected. This doesn't mean that the climax is altered, just that a slightly different route is taken to get there.

Yours,

Paul

When your character meets the props, sometimes they may have ideas.

For example, suppose you were starting to work on the cups and balls, and your character decided that the trick needs to use crumpled bills, and balled up socks for the final loads?

I do it slightly different. I learn the effect exactly the way the original routine was performed. Then I step back and say how can I make it my own. I then reinvent it but I have the moves and the timing down so the story or patter comes pretty quick.

I find that if I am trying to learn the routine and make it my own to begin with I miss some of the subtleties of the effect.

Now there are some things that I keep the original way. For example Color Monte. I just love the original patter and it makes sense. Just for the record I do not do a lot of packet tricks. I do agree that it should fit your style of performance. It is also important to remember we need to enjoy doing the effect before we show it to an audience. So make it your own and have fun

My opinion.

John

Bingo! That's the real secret. At least it is for me. Once you know your character, I mean really KNOW your character, you will have half the battle won. Have you ever actually described your character to yourself? It can help you. If you can get into your character, the character will write your material for you.

One thing that I have found that helps me is to give the props names. For example, the wand is no longer just a wand, but the "Wand of Wonder." Your hippity hop rabbits are not just two painted cut-outs, they are Irving and Zelma. These examples might not work for you, but they would work for some of the other people who do characters.

Now your character doesn't have to be radically different from you. Your character can be an "amplified version" of yourself.

But the very process of getting into character helps you focus your attention on what you might say.

Mitch Williams is a great close-up/parlor magician that lectures on spawning the creative process. I caught his lecture in 2002 and it was very inspiring. A little too sales pitched, but good nonetheless. I've got his contact information. PM me if you'd like it.

-Christian

The real secret is not brainstorming or anything like that.

Creativity must be made in a large glass, preferably one with a handle - a jug for example. Begin by mixing flour and water to create what we in the profession call 'glue'. Next you'll need to get what we Earth-children call 'wallpaper'. Place the wallpaper pattern side down on a table. Add the 'glue'. Spread evenly. Place the wallpaper glue side down over the window of your annoying next door neighbour. Complete until the entire house is covered in the wallpaper.

Note: this is best to do at night.

When the police come remember you were just being creative. Tell them this.

And have a pen and pad by the bed. The best ideas strike about 2 am. Just when the police should be arriving.

I never liked my neighbour anyway...

I still find it difficult to find the words theres a trick I have called the haunted die where a card out of six is selected and return in the deck only to be found by a dice turning over by itself to reveal its position within the six laid out cards


Could any one help explain the process they might go thro in thinking of the words and presentation not to copy but to get ideas from

Piece it together like a detective. Ask the 5 w's. Who, what, where, when, why. Not how that part you got.
Who gave you this Die? A witch? A ancestor? Liberace?
Where did it come from? A haunted castle? A graveyard? win it in a craps game with the Devil? Was it made from coffin wood at midnight by a condemmed man?
What makes it haunted? Does a poltergeist live inside? Is it cursed? Is it still under the control of the gambler who died while throwing for the last time? Will finding the card put his soul to rest?
When did you come into posession of this artifact? Did you win it gambling? Was it passed down to you for generations? Did it come in a Monoploy set you bought at a garage sale?
Why are you performing this experiment? Is it a seance? Are you trying to lift a curse? Does the selected card mean something?
Use these questions as a framework to build your routine. These are questions that your audience might ask. You need to answer them in a compelling way. I hope this helps.

It so happens that I have written an essay about this process at the Kevin James Forum at kjmagic.com...

I like what the chef has to say on this.
Ask. Always question what you are doing and why.

You are working with cards and a D6. What do those things have in common? Games. Hmmm.
When I see the two together, I think of a casino.
Your effect brings to mind of some type of cheating scam...
You take it from there. Or take it in a totally different direction.

Thanks for the reply,

the ideas I had did include a gambler, it was about him having lucky dice and then found dead with only them in his hand and so it was his spirit turning the dice.

The other idea was a traveling showmen called banks and his horse marroco who would tap his hoofs to reveal a number (abit of magic history there)