For the first year of my performing life, I operated under a single assumption about scripting: you write down every word, you memorize every word, and you deliver every word exactly as written. This seemed obvious. Actors memorize their lines. Keynote speakers memorize their talks. Why would a magician do anything different?
Then I started performing regularly, and the cracks appeared.
The scripted lines worked beautifully in my office, alone, rehearsing in front of a mirror or a phone camera. They worked in hotel rooms at two in the morning, when I would run through a routine against the backdrop of whatever anonymous European city I was consulting in that week. But in front of real people, something went wrong. The words came out flat. Mechanical. They sounded like what they were — memorized text delivered from memory, not a person speaking from experience.
I could not figure out what was going wrong until I read Cara Hamilton’s framework for storytelling in magic, where she draws a clean distinction between two approaches that I had been conflating into one.
The Two Approaches
Hamilton describes what she calls the Flexible Tale and the Fixed Tale. They are not variations of the same method. They are fundamentally different philosophies of how spoken performance should work.
The Flexible Tale works like this: you read or study the story you want to tell. You read it aloud several times until the key points settle in your mind in the right order. Then you put the source material down and tell the story in your own words, linking the key points together from memory. You know the structure — the beginning, the turns, the ending — but the specific words you use are different every time you tell it.
The Fixed Tale works like this: you write your own script, word for word. You practice until you can deliver it exactly as written, with the right movements at the right times. Every word is chosen. Every pause is placed. The delivery is the same every time, because every element has been designed and locked.
When I first encountered this framework, I assumed the Fixed Tale was the superior approach. It seemed more professional, more controlled, more rigorous. The Flexible Tale sounded like improvisation dressed up in respectable language — something you did when you had not bothered to do the real work of scripting.
I was wrong about that. Badly wrong.
Why the Flexible Tale Is Not Lazy
The Flexible Tale requires you to understand the story so deeply that you can reconstruct it from memory without needing specific words. This is a harder cognitive task than memorization. Memorization is rote — you repeat something until it sticks. Understanding a story well enough to retell it in different words every time requires you to internalize its structure, its emotional beats, and its purpose.
I discovered this when I tried the Flexible Tale approach with a routine I had been performing for about six months. I had a word-for-word script for this piece. I could recite it in my sleep. But when I tried to tell the same story using the Flexible Tale method — knowing the beats but choosing the words in the moment — I could not do it. I stumbled. I lost the thread. I realized that I had memorized the words without actually understanding why those words were there.
That was a humbling moment. I had been performing a routine for half a year, and I did not truly understand its narrative structure. I knew the script the way a student knows a memorized passage for an exam — accurately but superficially. The Flexible Tale approach forced me to go deeper.
Why the Fixed Tale Is Not Rigid
On the other side, the Fixed Tale gets an unfair reputation for producing robotic delivery. But Hamilton makes a crucial point about why writing your own script is preferable to using someone else’s: you have a pattern of speech natural to you. You have words you are comfortable with. You pause differently than other people. These three factors make your delivery unique, and writing your own script lets you build on those natural strengths.
The Fixed Tale is only rigid when you are performing someone else’s words. When the script is genuinely yours — when every word reflects how you actually speak and think — it does not sound memorized. It sounds like you. The memorization disappears beneath the naturalness of the language because the language was your natural language to begin with.
This is a subtle but vital distinction. Many performers skip the “write your own” step and memorize scripts from books, DVDs, or other performers’ routines. The result is always the same: it sounds scripted. Not because scripting is inherently stiff, but because they are performing in someone else’s voice.
My Hybrid Approach
After experimenting with both methods for several months, I landed on a hybrid approach that works for my performing context. I use the Fixed Tale for specific moments within a routine, and the Flexible Tale for everything else.
The moments I fix are the moments that matter most. The opening line of a routine. The setup for a climactic revelation. The closing line that ties everything together. A joke that depends on precise wording and timing. These are surgical moments where the exact words make a significant difference, and I write them, refine them, and lock them.
Everything between those fixed points is flexible. The connecting tissue — the transitions, the interactions with spectators, the small observations and asides that make a live performance feel alive — I handle with the Flexible Tale approach. I know what information needs to be conveyed, I know what emotional tone I am building toward, but I choose the words in the moment based on the room, the audience, and whatever has happened so far.
This hybrid approach solved the problem I had been struggling with. My performances stopped sounding memorized because most of them were not memorized in the word-for-word sense. But the critical moments — the lines that carry the weight of the routine — retained the precision and polish that comes from careful scripting.
The Eugene Burger Principle
Pete McCabe quotes Eugene Burger on this exact tension in Scripting Magic, and the quote reshaped how I think about the relationship between scripting and spontaneity. Burger said that by having a script, he had the freedom to depart from it. The script was “an engine purring on the side of the road” — he could step away from the vehicle to admire unexpected passing sights, knowing he could always return to it.
This is the deepest truth about the Fixed Tale approach. The script is not a cage. It is a safety net. When you know exactly what words are available to you, you can afford to leave them. You can follow a spontaneous moment, engage with an unexpected audience reaction, or explore an improvised tangent, because you know that the scripted path is there whenever you need to return to it.
Without that script — without the engine purring on the side of the road — departures feel dangerous. You leave the planned path and immediately feel lost. So you either never leave (resulting in rigid, mechanical delivery) or you leave and cannot find your way back (resulting in a rambling, unfocused performance). The script gives you the courage to be spontaneous, which is one of the great paradoxes of performance.
How I Test Which Approach Fits a Moment
Over time, I have developed a simple test for deciding whether a particular moment in a routine should be Fixed or Flexible.
I ask myself: if I changed the words of this moment, would the effect change? If the answer is yes — if the specific words carry meaning, humor, or dramatic weight that would be lost with different phrasing — then this moment is Fixed. I write it, I refine it, I lock it.
If the answer is no — if the purpose of the moment is to convey information, build rapport, or transition between phases, and any number of word choices could achieve that purpose — then this moment is Flexible. I know the beats, I know the destination, and I let the words come naturally.
A practical example: I have a moment in one of my routines where I need to explain a simple premise to the audience. The information is straightforward and the tone is conversational. This is Flexible. The words I use to explain it are slightly different every time, and that is fine — the slight variation keeps it sounding fresh and natural.
Later in the same routine, there is a line that sets up the climax. The wording of that line creates a specific expectation in the audience’s mind, and the climax works because it subverts that exact expectation. If I change the words, the subversion weakens. This is Fixed. I deliver that line the same way every time, because its precision is what makes the climax land.
The Rehearsal Difference
Fixed and Flexible moments require different kinds of rehearsal, and mixing them up leads to problems.
Fixed moments need repetition rehearsal. You run the exact words over and over until they are second nature. You practice them standing, sitting, walking. You practice them tired and energized. You practice them until you could deliver them after being woken from a deep sleep. The goal is automaticity — the words should flow without requiring conscious recall.
Flexible moments need structural rehearsal. You do not practice the words. You practice the structure — the sequence of beats, the information that must be conveyed, the emotional arc. Then you practice telling that story in different ways, using different words each time, to build the improvisational muscle within that known structure.
When I first started combining Fixed and Flexible moments, I made the mistake of rehearsing everything with repetition. This meant that even my Flexible moments became inadvertently fixed — I would practice them so many times with the same words that those words became memorized by default. The result was a performance that sounded entirely memorized, which was exactly what I was trying to avoid.
Now I deliberately vary my language during rehearsal of Flexible sections. I force myself to tell the same story differently each time I practice it. This is harder than repeating the same words — it requires genuine engagement with the material rather than autopilot repetition — but it preserves the naturalness that makes the Flexible Tale approach valuable.
The Audience Cannot Tell
Here is what surprised me most about this hybrid approach: the audience cannot tell which moments are Fixed and which are Flexible. When both are working well, the entire performance sounds like natural, spontaneous speech. The Fixed moments do not sound memorized because they are written in my natural voice. The Flexible moments do not sound unprepared because they are built on a thoroughly rehearsed structure.
This seamlessness is the goal. The audience should never think about whether what you are saying is scripted or improvised. They should simply experience it as a person talking to them — a person who happens to be interesting, engaging, and in complete command of the moment.
The tension between structure and spontaneity, between the Fixed Tale and the Flexible Tale, is not a problem to be solved. It is a creative space to be explored. The best performances I have given have been the ones where I found the right balance between precision and freedom, where the scripted moments landed with surgical accuracy and the unscripted moments breathed with genuine life.
Two approaches. Neither one complete on its own. Together, they are more than either could be alone.