How to create your show?

Introduction

That's it, you've decided, you want to embark on the adventure and write a real show. You start to imagine it, it will be like this, with a bit of that... but everything gets mixed up. Should I start by finding a character and then think about the tricks I will present? Or maybe the other way around? How do I write the script so that it is interesting enough for the audience? And then, how do I learn these whole pages of text by heart?

So many questions (which are normal to ask, we assure you) that can make you dizzy. It was more than ever time to calmly revisit things and study them point by point to reach your final goal: creating your own magic show from scratch.

The overall concept of your show

First, some important points need to be clarified regarding your show. These few points we will discuss are the first words that will describe your show, its first bricks.

One of the first questions to ask is about the type of show you want to present: is it a close-up show? A show that will be performed on stage? Or a show that will be performed while wandering around a venue (like at a festival, for example)? Each type of show has its constraints and its strengths; it's about clarifying your ideas on what you want to present.

Once the type of show is locked in, you need to think about the ideal audience you will present it to. Is it an audience exclusively composed of magicians? In which case you will have to focus on creating new effects. Is the audience composed of scientists or experts in a field (this is the case if your show is to be performed at a convention, for example), in which case you will also need to be an expert in that field, otherwise you will discredit yourself by saying anything. Is it a show for children? If so, we recommend studying books on the subject, such as Spectacle pour enfants: Le guide complet by Danny Orleans, for example. Finally, the audience can also be a "classic" audience without any particular dominant characteristic. This means that you will therefore have to remain broad in what you present, or at least explain everything you present in such a way that no one is left out.

Finally, let's talk about the general theme of the show. If you want to write a show, it's because you certainly have an initial impulse, a fragment of an idea, a particular emotion you would like to convey, a theme you would like to address during this show. No matter what it is, this keyword will be the elementary brick from which your entire show will stem. It can be a theme that designates a place (a country, for example, you could present a Japanese magic show among others, about cinema, ...), a theme based on a story of which you would have the beginning (a romance between two people, ...), or an even more abstract concept (representing a battle between good and evil, ...).

Thus, starting from scratch, you now know what type of show you want to present, its general theme with your keyword, and you even have a target audience to present it to. We can therefore start getting down to business by seeing how to go from a simple keyword to a real universe...

Creating a universe

You have your theme, a keyword, an emotion, in short, a word or two that represent the very essence of your project. We need to go further, and immerse ourselves in this theme to create a coherent universe from it. Let's take an example to illustrate this: I want to create a show on the theme "steampunk" but I have no idea of a plot yet, nor of effects to present, let alone a universe. Don't panic, let's start looking into it!

A good thing to do is to first immerse yourself in the resources that exist on the internet and elsewhere that talk about this theme. Can you find a book about this theme? Whether it's a documentary book or a novel doesn't matter. Maybe there is one or more classic series to watch on this subject? Music to listen to on this theme?

The idea is to create a folder on your computer and put everything you find in it, haphazardly. The idea for now is not to make a selection, but just to dive fully into the universe in question. By constantly adding images found here and there, a graphic coherence will form, dominant colors will appear, a style will impose itself, clothes will become logical to wear. A good thing to do is to look on sites like Pinterest or Instagram at what users have posted about the researched theme. These sites are real gold mines and allow you to create albums (moodboards) by saving the content you like.

With the images, start associating sounds. This can be music, of course, but also noises (noises of mechanisms, clockwork, or a steam engine, for example, for steampunk). Also associate the smells that could be found in this universe. It could be interesting in your show to have an ambient smell that further immerses the spectators in the universe you are creating. It's this kind of detail that makes a show go from good to completely immersive...

These researches thus allow you to begin to design a coherent universe in which your character will evolve. Speaking of the character, it's time to address that question. You need to be able, even if the subject is not addressed in your show, to explain what your character does for a living. It doesn't matter whether this question is directly addressed or not in your show; knowing and writing it will make the whole more logical. You need to be able to tell this character's life in detail. After all, you will be in their shoes when you are on stage. Not knowing what you're getting into can only lead to nothing good. You won't be coherent and have an immersive show if you don't even know your character's habits. Maybe they have speech tics? Bad habits? Do they have a family and who are their close friends? Where do they live, what do they do for a living? It's by answering all these questions that everything will flow naturally, that logic will impose itself on you. These answers are all possible doors for the narrative axes that will structure your show.

For example, to return to our steampunk character, rather than "just" performing magic in a steampunk setting, it might be interesting to create a narrative arc around the character. By asking who this character is and what he does in life, we could, for example, imagine that he is a merchant traveling from town to town to sell various magical machines. This simple idea already gives us narrative leads (the character would have to speak like a fairground merchant) and even set design ideas (we can imagine that the stage is a reproduction of his stall). Doing this provides a pretext for the story (the character comes on stage because he has just arrived in a new town) and coherence to the whole (the spectators play the role of the audience in front of the stall, thus breaking the fourth wall logically, without just "doing a magic trick for the sake of doing a magic trick").

Now that the general atmosphere is set, we need to work on the script itself, which will bring all your ideas to life...

Building a Story

All these elements, gradually forming, can then be assembled to create a real main plot. We could imagine, to return to the steampunk example, that the character's objective on stage is to build the machine of their dreams, but that to do so, they will have to overcome a large number of obstacles, which will serve as pretexts for performing magic tricks during the show.

Creating a story, even if it is based on these elements, is never easy (if it were, there would be no interest after all!). The watchword of your story is coherence. Always ask yourself why for each element introduced. For example, it can be useful to ask why a magical effect occurs. Where does this magic come from? Does it come from the character themselves, who would be endowed with powers (and is this logical in relation to what you have written about your character's story?) or does it come, for example, from the objects themselves? On this occasion, we recommend watching this episode of Détours de magie in which we interviewed Claude de Piante, who specifically talks about how to create a character, and the importance of the logic and coherence of the text.

To return to the steampunk example, we would be tempted to say that the character himself has no powers, but that the objects themselves are imbued with power. It is the marvelous steam machines that hold the power; the character merely observes it, sometimes even endures it.

But once that's said, we need to dig a little deeper. And since we don't just become writers, some talented screenwriters have made it easier for us by popularizing methods in books. In this regard, I recommend the books Écrire pour la magie by Benoit Grenier, Le pouvoir de la narration magique by Claude de Piante, and The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler, from which we derive a general structure that can apply to almost any show and comprises 12 steps.

Christopher Vogler explains that one can easily write a story by relying on these 12 points, which are as follows:

1. The Ordinary World: The stage is set for our hero living in an ordinary world. This is the initial moment when we get to know them, discovering their strengths, weaknesses, but also their world, which is ultimately not so different from our own...
2. The Call to Adventure: For one reason or another, a problem arises, a problem that the hero must solve. This is when the adventure begins, where the character starts to overcome challenges.
3. Refusal of the Call: The hero fears the consequences of this call to adventure. This call is not a simple thing; they must confront their fears to overcome the trials.
4. Meeting the Mentor: A person the hero meets will help them, in one way or another, to overcome the trials. Often, this mentor has gone through the same trials as the hero at another time, and thus offers good advice for overcoming the challenges.
5. Crossing the Threshold: This is the moment when the hero takes courage and finally embarks on the adventure. This is the turning point of the story, where it truly begins.
6. Tests, Allies, and Enemies: The hero encounters various trials and enemies on their journey, but also friends they can rely on. The hero must triumph over these obstacles to achieve their goal.
7. Approach to the Inmost Cave: The hero has never been so close to their objective, to why they are facing all these trials. The cave is a metaphor for the place where the holy grail sought by the hero is located.
8. The Ordeal: The final, often most formidable, trial, after which the hero can reach their holy grail, also called the elixir.
9. Reward (Seizing the Sword): The hero manages to triumph over the final trial and obtains what they so desperately wanted: the elixir.
10. The Road Back: The hero returns home, sometimes not without difficulty because they often have to face the anger of the people from whom they took the elixir.
11. Resurrection: The hero has returned to their initial ordinary world, but one thing has changed: they are no longer the same, they have managed to get their hands on the elixir, and their journey has deeply transformed and marked them.
12. Return With the Elixir: The hero uses the elixir to solve the problems they initially had. This is the conclusion of this epic.

This list of 12 points is obviously not to be taken literally. It is only there to structure your show, to give you food for thought. Some points can be removed, others merged together... the essential thing is that this structure allows for quick scenario ideas, with a proven structure.

To this evolving story, we must now add magical effects, which brings us to the next part.

The selection of tricks

Since we are trying our hand at creating a magic show, it still needs to include... magic. We started by writing the story before including our tricks; the reverse can also be possible, though probably more difficult. We present this method to clarify ideas and give you leads; you are free to conform to this canvas or not.

Magic has the particularity of playing powerfully with the emotions of the spectators. The magician's role will therefore be to best manage the emotional surges and to vary the impact by alternating strong and less strong moments.

Attention will also be paid to alternating visual effects with more interactive effects. Indeed, it will be more difficult (but not impossible) to create a show without any interaction with the audience. Similarly, a constant request for an assistant will be difficult to justify. In any case, without alternation, the show will lose dynamism.

Another way to make the whole dynamic is to use callbacks. Nothing prevents you, during one of your magic effects, from making a callback to one of your previous magic effects. For example, an object that disappears at the beginning of the show and reappears unexpectedly at its very end constitutes a callback to the initial effect. By using these callbacks in a cross-cutting, intertwined, or even mixed way, you will bring surprise and a "well-constructed" aspect to your show, showing that everything seems to have been thought out.

Finally, a point that seems important to us to address is that of the magical effect itself. A magic trick should not be a simple demonstration of power; the trick must fit naturally into the story. It is not enough to copy-paste a trick and include it as is in the show without touching it up. That would not make sense. You have to know how to open the effect to other types of presentations. Let's take an example: you absolutely want to present the trick of salt and pepper separating in the spectator's hand, because you find the effect sensational (and it is). Why not approach this from the angle of black and white sand that you manage to separate (you finally manage to separate good from evil represented by the sands). Why not thus address questions of Yin and Yang, everything around spirituality rather than a simple separation of pepper and salt? The same effect, whose structure, effect and method do not change, manages to give a completely different image simply by changing the angle from which it is explained. Do not deprive yourself of this side step that will allow you to present effects in an original and never-before-seen way. This will allow you to get started in creating your own routines, making your show unique and coherent with your character.

Conclusion

We could continue these explanations on show creation for a long time, but the idea was to share some essential resources, key and important points to give you the basics around it. We could have talked about concrete methods for learning your script, the logistics surrounding the show, and many other fascinating things, but that will be for another time!

We hope these few elements have been useful to you, and do not hesitate if you have any questions, we are here to answer them! If you have a show that you are currently writing, we would be delighted to help you with this project, so please do not hesitate to contact us!

To go further

Claude de Piante, Le pouvoir de la narration magique Sur les traces de Jean Merlin…, Volume 1 Magie générale et rapprochée, (available here).

Benoît Grenier, Écrire pour la magie Guide d’écriture scénaristique destiné aux magiciens, published by Georges Proust.

Jonathan Renoux, Spectacle en couleurs, published by Le cabinet d’illusions (available here).