The discovery happened in a hotel room in Vienna, which is where most of my discoveries happen. I was transcribing a recording of a close-up performance I’d done the night before at a networking event, and I noticed something strange. Two moments in the same performance — both using the same type of effect, both performed for similar groups of people, both executed about equally well from a technical standpoint — had gotten dramatically different reactions.
The first moment was polite. People nodded, smiled, said “that’s cool.” The kind of reaction that means they appreciated what happened but weren’t moved by it.
The second moment stopped the conversation. A woman put her hand over her mouth. Her husband said “wait, what?” and made me repeat what had just happened. The group was genuinely astonished.
Same performer. Same audience. Same evening. Same general type of effect. What was different?
I listened to the recording three times before I caught it. The difference was in the language. In the first moment, I’d used generic, indefinite language. In the second, I’d used specific, definite language. And that seemingly trivial distinction had produced a measurable gap in audience engagement.
The Generic Default
Pete McCabe’s Scripting Magic hammered this point in a way that rewired how I think about performance language. McCabe’s core principle is to write from the audience’s perspective, and one of the most powerful applications of that principle is specificity. Generic language puts distance between the audience and the experience. Specific language closes that distance to zero.
Ken Weber makes a similar point about language precision in Maximum Entertainment — that every word choice either strengthens or weakens the audience’s connection to what’s happening. Words are not neutral vessels. They carry weight, and that weight either pulls the audience in or pushes them away.
Here’s what generic language sounds like in performance:
“I have a coin here.” “The selected card.” “A borrowed ring.” “Take a card, any card.” “I’m going to use this envelope.”
And here’s what specific language sounds like:
“This coin — look at it, the 2019 date, the scratch on the edge.” “Your card. The one you chose freely.” “The ring you wear every day — the one your wife gave you.” “Think about why you stopped on that particular card.” “This envelope has been sitting in my pocket since before the show started.”
The information content is similar. But the emotional weight is entirely different. Generic language describes a category. Specific language describes a thing. And people connect with things, not categories.
Why It Matters Psychologically
There’s a reason “this coin” hits harder than “a coin,” and it’s rooted in how our brains process ownership and relevance.
When I say “a coin,” the audience’s brain categorizes it as a generic object. One coin among billions. The brain files it under “prop” and allocates minimal attention. A coin is part of the magician’s equipment, not part of the audience’s experience.
When I say “this coin,” the brain shifts gears. “This” points to something specific and present. The brain can’t categorize it as generic because the language has flagged it as particular. Attention increases. The object transforms from a prop to a participant.
Now extend that to “this coin — the one you just checked, the one you marked with your initials.” The coin is no longer mine. It’s become the audience member’s coin — their mark, their verification, their involvement. When something impossible happens, it’s not happening to my prop. It’s happening to their thing.
The psychological distance between “a coin” and “this coin, the one you marked” is enormous. One is a demonstration. The other is an experience happening to you.
The Discovery in Practice
Back to that Vienna evening. In the first moment — the one that got polite reactions — I’d said something like “I have a card here. A prediction I made earlier.” Generic. Indefinite. A card, a prediction. Objects without identity.
In the second moment — the one that stopped the conversation — I’d said: “Remember the decision you made? You could have chosen anything. But you chose that. And this envelope — it’s been in my jacket pocket since I walked in tonight. Your friend watched me put it there before we even started.”
Same structural beat — a prediction reveal. But the language was radically different. “The decision you made” instead of “a choice.” “You chose that” instead of “a card was selected.” “This envelope” instead of “an envelope.” “Your friend watched me” instead of “someone verified.”
Every pronoun pointed at the audience. Every modifier pointed at something specific and verifiable. The language created a web of personal connections between the audience members, the objects, and the outcome. When the prediction was revealed, it wasn’t something that happened on my side of the table. It was something that happened inside their experience.
The Pronoun Hierarchy
After analyzing dozens of my own recordings, I developed what I think of as a pronoun hierarchy — a ranking of how involving different language choices are:
Least involving: “A card.” “An envelope.” “The item.” These are indefinite or generic. They describe categories, not specifics. They belong to nobody and mean nothing.
Slightly more involving: “This card.” “This envelope.” “The coin.” The definite article and the demonstrative pronoun create specificity. There’s only one. It’s the one right here. But it’s still mine, not theirs.
More involving: “Your card.” “Your choice.” “The word you thought of.” Possessive pronouns transfer ownership from performer to audience. The object or decision now belongs to them. Their investment increases because their property is at stake.
Most involving: “The card you chose when nobody was influencing you.” “The ring your husband gave you on your anniversary.” “The word that came from your own experience — nobody put it there.” Maximum specificity plus maximum personal connection. The language has woven the audience member’s identity into the fabric of the effect.
The difference between the bottom of this hierarchy and the top is the difference between watching a magic trick and having a magical experience. And the only variable is language.
Applying the Principle
Once I understood the hierarchy, I went through every routine in my repertoire and identified the generic language. There was more of it than I expected. Years of performing had installed default phrases that I’d never examined:
“I have here a deck of cards” — generic, and stating the obvious. “Let’s use these envelopes” — generic and procedural. “Pick a number” — generic instruction without investment. “The coin vanished” — passive description of a category event.
The rewrites were small in word count but significant in impact:
“I have here a deck of cards” became nothing. I just held up the deck. The audience could see what it was.
“Let’s use these envelopes” became “These three envelopes have been sitting on that table since you arrived. You saw them when you walked in.”
“Pick a number” became “Think of a number that means something to you. A birthday. An address. Something personal.”
“The coin vanished” became “Open your hand. It’s gone. The coin you were holding — the one you were squeezing — it’s not there anymore.”
Each rewrite accomplished the same narrative function. But each one increased the audience’s personal investment in the outcome. The objects stopped being my props and started being their things. The decisions stopped being arbitrary instructions and started being personal expressions.
The Borrowed Object Advantage
This is also why borrowed objects are so powerful in magic, and why the language around them matters so much.
“I’ll use this ring” is decent. It’s specific — this ring, not a ring.
“The ring you wear every day. The one that was on your finger when you woke up this morning” is transformative. It connects the object to the person’s life, their identity. The ring isn’t a prop anymore. It’s an artifact of their daily existence. When something impossible happens to it, the impossibility penetrates deeper because the object carries personal meaning.
I’ve started building this specificity into every moment where I use a borrowed item. A phone isn’t “your phone.” It’s “the phone with all your photos, your messages, everything.” A watch isn’t “your watch.” It’s “the watch you check twenty times a day without thinking about it.”
These additions take five seconds each. But they transform the audience’s relationship with the effect because they transform the audience’s relationship with the objects involved.
The Specificity Test
Here’s a test I apply to every script now. I call it the specificity test, and it’s straightforward.
Read through your script and circle every noun. For each noun, ask: is this generic or specific? “A card” is generic. “The seven of hearts that you freely chose” is specific. “An envelope” is generic. “This sealed envelope that’s been in plain sight all evening” is specific.
Then look at every verb. “The card was placed on the table” is passive and generic. “You put your card right there, face down, exactly where you wanted it” is active and specific. Passive voice creates distance. Active voice with “you” as the subject creates involvement.
Finally, check every decision point. “Choose a card” is a generic instruction. “Think about which card you want to stop on. There’s no wrong answer. It’s completely your decision” is a specific invitation that emphasizes agency.
After running this test, aim for at least seventy percent of your nouns to be specific and at least half your verbs to have the audience as the subject. These aren’t rigid rules — different routines have different needs. But as a benchmark, they push you toward audience-centered language.
The Compound Effect
What surprised me most was how the effects compounded. Any single change — “a coin” to “this coin” — is minor in isolation. But when every object is specific, every decision is personalized, and every pronoun points at the audience, the cumulative effect is dramatic.
The entire atmosphere of a performance changes. It stops being “watch me do something clever” and becomes “experience something impossible that involves you.” The audience shifts from spectators to participants — not because they’re physically doing more, but because the language has placed them at the center.
I performed the same mentalism routine twice in one week — once with generic language and once with the rewritten specific language. The first got solid reactions. The second got a standing ovation from thirty people at a corporate dinner in Klagenfurt. The only variable was the words.
Words are not decoration. Words are architecture. They build the structure that the audience’s experience lives inside. Generic words build a warehouse — functional, spacious, forgettable. Specific words build a home — personal, intimate, memorable.
The Ongoing Discipline
Specificity requires ongoing vigilance. Generic language is the default. It’s easier, faster, requires less thought. “A card” rolls off the tongue. “The card you chose when you had every option in the world” requires intention.
Every time I write a new script, the first draft is peppered with generic language. The specificity comes in the rewrite, when I go through line by line and ask: can this be more specific? Can this point more directly at the audience?
The discipline is worth it. Every time I hear an audience member say “wait, that was my card” with genuine shock — emphasis on “my” — I know the language did its job. They didn’t say “the card.” They said “my card.”
That’s the whole game. Not “a coin disappeared.” But “the coin you were holding, the one you checked, the one with your mark on it — it’s gone.”
Same coin. Same disappearance. Completely different experience.