Every performer who opens their mouth on stage is a writer -- even if they've never written a word down. I didn't realize my word choices were shaping my audience's experience until I understood that I already had a script. It was just an accidental one.
Read MoreThere is an entire vocabulary of words that performers use without realizing they are sabotaging themselves. Magic jargon, weak verbs, condescending filler -- I went through my scripts line by line and was horrified by what I found.
Read MoreFive words that scream amateur louder than a fumbled deck. 'For my next trick' announces procedure instead of building interest, and I used it for longer than I care to admit. Here is what I replaced it with.
Read MoreWe all have verbal tics we cannot hear. Mine was 'just like that' -- said after every single effect, like a verbal signature I never chose to write. Watching myself on video was the uncomfortable cure.
Read MoreI asked 'Are you sure?' after every spectator choice for years, thinking it built dramatic tension. It didn't. It was meaningless filler that subtly told the audience I thought they couldn't make a simple decision. Here is the moment I stopped.
Read MoreThe moment you tell an audience 'This is just an ordinary deck of cards,' you have planted the seed of suspicion. Ken Weber's insight on why props are presumed ordinary until you draw attention to them changed how I handle every object I bring on stage.
Read MoreThe hollow phrases performers use to end shows are generic, insincere, and the audience knows it. My search for a closing line that means something taught me more about honesty than any book on performance theory.
Read MorePerformance language should sound natural, not academic. But basic grammar errors signal sloppy thinking, and sloppy thinking erodes trust. As a non-native English speaker performing in English, I learned this lesson with extra pain.
Read MoreAudiences have a BS detector that is more sensitive than most performers realize. When you tell a fabricated personal story, something rings false -- the details are too clean, the emotion too calculated. The day I replaced a borrowed anecdote with a real one changed everything.
Read MoreNarrating your own visible actions -- 'Now I'm shuffling the cards,' 'I'll place this on the table' -- treats the audience like they cannot see what is right in front of them. The day I cut all procedural narration from my scripts, something remarkable happened: nothing was lost.
Read MoreEvery speaker and performer defaults to 'raise your hand if...' as their go-to audience interaction tool. I did too -- until I realized it rarely creates genuine engagement and almost always puts the audience in student mode rather than entertainment mode.
Read MoreFor months I asked audiences 'Would you mind helping me?' and 'Is it okay if I borrow this?' I thought I was being polite. I was actually being weak -- and the audience could feel it. Here's what changed when I stopped asking and started inviting.
Read MoreAnnouncing 'I need a volunteer' to a room full of people creates anxiety, competition, and awkwardness all at once. I learned the hard way that the best volunteers aren't found by asking -- they're found by choosing.
Read MoreI used to narrate every action during a performance: 'Now I'm placing the card on the table. Now I'm covering it with the handkerchief.' It took a sharp lesson from scripting to realize I was describing what the audience could already see -- and boring them in the process.
Read MoreA tiny shift in language -- from generic to specific, from indefinite to definite -- produced a noticeable change in how audiences engaged with my performances. The difference between 'a coin' and 'this coin' turns out to be the difference between a demonstration and an experience.
Read MoreCertain phrases create an atmosphere of wonder and possibility. Others reduce magic to a puzzle to be solved. I built a catalog of each and discovered that the difference between mystery and mundanity is often just a few words.
Read MoreThe same effect performed with two different verbal introductions creates two completely different emotional experiences. I tested this deliberately and the results changed how I think about every word that precedes a moment of impossibility.
Read MoreCertain words do not just describe impossibility -- they make it feel more impossible. I started placing these impossibility intensifiers at strategic moments in my scripts and discovered they are as important as the effects themselves.
Read MoreStand-up comedians are the most ruthless editors of language on the planet. Every word in a joke earns its place or gets cut. What magicians can learn from this discipline changed how I write every line of my scripts.
Read MoreThe ultimate editing principle for performers: if a sentence does not target one of the Big Three reactions, advance the narrative, or build character, it does not belong. This is the capstone of twenty posts on language -- and the reflection that ties them all together.
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