Practical Scripting Techniques

10 posts in this series

Reading Order

1 of 10 — 8 min read

Choose Your Own Adventure: Jon Armstrong's Flowchart Method for Scripting

Jon Armstrong scripts his performances not as linear scripts but as branching flowcharts, with prepared responses for every possible audience reaction. This creates the feeling of improvisation within a structured framework. I started building flowcharts for my own mentalism routines, and the results were transformative.

2 of 10 — 8 min read

Deliberate Ums: Why Scripted Imperfection Sounds More Natural Than Perfection

Perfectly polished delivery sounds rehearsed and artificial. Strategic pauses, deliberate hesitations, and controlled 'ums' make scripted material sound spontaneous. My breakthrough came from deliberately scripting moments of apparent uncertainty into my keynote performances.

3 of 10 — 8 min read

Floater Lines: The Lines That Can Live Anywhere in Your Show

Max Maven calls them 'floaters' -- interchangeable lines that can move freely around your show, deployed whenever the moment feels right. Building a collection of floater lines is building a toolkit for spontaneity within structure. My collection started small and now fills a notebook.

4 of 10 — 8 min read

Gone Birds Eye: When to Stop Tweaking Your Script and Let It Freeze

Max Maven's concept of 'going Birds Eye' -- freezing your script once it is working. The opposite of constant tinkering. Freezing frees your mind to focus on the audience rather than on what to say next. My tendency to constantly revise nearly ruined material that was already working.

5 of 10 — 8 min read

Write It All Down, Then Don't Memorize It: The Middle Path to Natural Delivery

Write a complete, polished script to clarify your thinking. Identify the key lines that must be exact. Memorize only those. For everything else, know the ideas and express them naturally each time. The result: a scripted backbone with natural, conversational flesh.

6 of 10 — 8 min read

Five Types of Opening Lines Borrowed from Journalism

Journalists have codified five opening structures that grab attention instantly. I borrowed all five, tested them in corporate keynotes across Austria, and discovered that the right opening line for a magic routine depends entirely on who is sitting in the chairs.

7 of 10 — 8 min read

Give Every Trick a Name: Not a Trick Name, a Presentation Name

The published name of a trick is a label for magicians. Your audience does not care about 'Ambitious Card' or 'Triumph.' I renamed every routine in my repertoire based on my presentation, and the new names changed my relationship with the material in ways I did not expect.

8 of 10 — 8 min read

Tape It to Your Typewriter: Arthur Miller's One-Sentence Exercise for Every Trick

Arthur Miller would write one sentence describing what a play was about and tape it above his typewriter. I applied this to every trick in my show and discovered that if you cannot write that sentence in sixty seconds, the routine is underdeveloped.

9 of 10 — 8 min read

The Three Dots Exercise: Write the Effect, Add Dot Dot Dot, and Discover Hidden Magic

Write a description of your effect, add three dots at the end, and see what comes next. This exercise from Pete McCabe forced me past the obvious descriptions and into the deeper meaning hiding inside routines I thought I already understood.

10 of 10 — 8 min read

What Is the Most Interesting Thing About This Prop? The MIT Exercise

Take any prop and ask what is the most interesting thing about this object -- not what you can do with it, but what makes it inherently fascinating. I applied this exercise to every prop in my show and discovered that the most interesting things about objects are rarely the things magicians talk about.