Magic Trick Development and Creativity For Magicians

A complete guide to creating original magic, refining routines, and building effects that actually work!

The 7 Steps to Going from an Idea to WOW!

What “Trick Development” Really Means

Trick development isn’t just having a thought about a trick, it’s the full lifecycle of an effect, from an idea to a fully stage tested routine!:

  • The Idea — What you want the magic trick to do, AKA the effect
  • Method — The technical part of how you’re going to make the magic trick work
  • Visuals — What the audience sees
  • Script — This is where your personality shines
  • Refining — Fixing or polishing the trick
  • Performance — This is the goal of the idea

The Creative Process for Magicians

My creative cycle for creating a magic routine typically follows these stages:

  1. Spark — It all begins here! For me it’s usually either a thought like, “wouldn’t it be cool if…” or from a specific need in my show. For example my Film Can Dice Force came from me needing a way to force a number from one to six for a stage show.
  2. Method exploration — How are you going to accomplish the trick? This is where having a large knowledge of existing methods comes in handy. You can pull from things that already exist in weird ways. Using my Film Can Dice Force as an example again, the method for that magic prop has its roots in an older magic trick that does something completely different.
  3. Prototype — You gotta make the first one to see if your idea works. Some of the best ideas I have drawn on paper will hit a speed bump at this point. The reality of actually making the prop can be a challenge. This is where having some prop building knowledge comes in handy, or being able to lean on someone who can help bring your idea off the page of your notebook.
  4. The Hook — This is the “why” you are showing this to the audience. For me this can be the most challenging part. There are easy ones that I sometimes use a place holder, like “the latest trick I thought of”, or “my favorite trick”. However, the goal is to ditch a placeholder hook as soon as possible. A good example is the routine for a time prediction that’s about what people name their pets and a story about my cat.
  5. Rehearsal — Now that you’ve got the prop and the script, you put them together and practice the routine at home.
  6. Live testing — Personally, I’m a fan of getting a routine onstage as quickly as possible. I do this at places like open mics or my local magic clubs.
    This step is where you learn what works or doesn’t work. Most of the time, the first time you do a trick, it will play just OK, and you’ll see where the trick lags or excels. Sometimes that means scrapping the whole routine, and every now and then it’ll be near perfect right away!
  7. Refining — Take the knowledge from live testing and use it to make changes to the trick to correct anything you or the audience didn’t like.
  8. Repeat — Keep doing the previous steps until you have a routine ready for your main show!

I did a virtual lecture for a magic convention where I discussed what I call The Six R’s to Working On Your Show. This covers how I work out a routine.

Finding & Shaping the Hook

The Hook answers the audience’s question “why are you showing this to me?”. Without it, tricks feel like puzzles.

Strong presentation hooks can come from:

  • Personal stories: In my show I do a rope routine, but the whole story while I do is about a lady who hated the trick.
  • Visual metaphors: This type of hook is used a lot in gospel magic presentations.
  • Problems that need solving: A great example of this style of hook is Michael Carbonaro’s TV show.
  • Emotional hooks: These are stories that can trigger emotions from the audience. Tricks about love, or loss usually fall into this category.

Here’s an example of trying to find the hook for my Linking Pins routine:
https://www.magicshow.tips/magic-show-tips/hook-for-the-giant-linking-pins/

Scripting Your Routine

At this point, it’s time to write out what you will say in the routine. Yes, actually write it out. Being able to see the script makes a huge difference in editing it!

Key scripting principles:

  • Try to write like you talk, which isn’t necessarily what would be correct in your high school English class.
  • Try adding in the basic physical things you do during the routine. It will help you remember what you’re doing if it’s a routine you haven’t done in a while and are revisiting.
  • Look for things that are unclear and expand them.

Here’s an example of a first draft of a script for my Polaroid picture routine:
https://www.magicshow.tips/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/1to3.pdf
Then here’s a second draft of that routine:
https://www.magicshow.tips/magic-show-tips/revising-a-script/

Make the Trick Real!

Sometimes one of the biggest challenges is figuring out how you’re going to make the trick happen. There are many different ways to accomplish a magic trick, and some are a combination of multiple methods.

Magic Method Categories:

  • Mechanical: Something like a mirror box, or anything with moving parts fits into this category.
  • Electronic: These are magic tricks with sensors or even app based methods.
  • Sleight of Hand: I consider this to be anything where you’re doing a secret action.
  • Psychological: There’s a fairly broad range for what this could be. Using a trick relying on odds, dual reality, perception all fit this category.
  • Hybrid methods: Many methods for a magic trick end up here. An example would be if you secretly (sleight of hand) pushed a button (electronic), which moved a motor (mechanical), that would be three categories.

Building The Prop

  • Prototypes don’t need to be pretty, they just have to work!
  • Learn from the prototype and use that knowledge in future designs.
  • Beware of the “sunk cost fallacy”! It’s ok to shelf an idea that you’ve put a lot of time and money into if it’s not working. Sometimes taking a break, then revisiting an idea months or years later will lead you to different or more workable solutions.

Here’s a page about some basic magic prop building!

Testing the Trick in the Real World

This is the fun part, going out and actually trying the trick for people! A trick may play great at home in front of the mirror, they frequently play differently in front of an actual audience.

Where and How to Test Your New Magic Trick

  • Look for places with a “soft landing” if it crashes, like an open mic or magic club meeting.
  • Video or audio record your show and track the reactions per minute. Count each reaction (gasp, laugh, applause) that happens during the trick. Take that number and divide it by the length of the routine, and that’s your reactions per minute. This is one of the few hard data points you can use as a metric for your act. It doesn’t always apply to every act. For example, if you have a long, serious monologue that ends with one dramatic effect, you might have a .25 reactions per minute and that’s all you want it to be, whereas a comedy act might have two reactions per minute and your goal is to get it to four.
  • How does it feel? Do you like doing it, does the trick feel right in your hands? If you’re not comfortable doing the trick, figure out why and do your best to get comfortable.
  • Identify what you don’t like. Try your best to eliminate them. Sometimes this will be a sleight of hand move that gets the job done, but doesn’t fit the overall routine. Whatever it is, try to eliminate it.
  • Listen to the audience! Sometimes a trick or routine that you and put a lot of time into just won’t play for an audience. There are a million reasons for this. Don’t force something that isn’t working!

One of the ways that I frequently test out new routines is to do them as preshow tricks. You can read about an example of this here.

Creativity Exercises for Magicians

There are a lot of things that I do for creativity. One of the easiest things is to be a life long student of the world. Do you see something (not just a magic trick) and wonder how it works? Try to come up with a way, then research how it works. Were you close or did you create something new?

Here’s one of the Keys to Creativity!

Exercises:

The First Step to Being Creative

Get a notebook and a pen, that’s an easy step. Next, set aside some time to write every day. Make this a routine, so do it at the same time every day. I do it first thing in the morning, right after I wake up. Doing it immediately when my day starts forces me to actually write every day. It’s much harder to put it off if it’s the first thing you do.

Decide what your minimum for writing it. Is it 30 minutes, or is it 3 pages? Whatever it is, you can’t do anything else until you’ve fulfilled your minimum. Of course, you can write more than that.

What do you write? Some days I create ideas for magic, jokes, or whatever creative thing I’m working on. Some days I journal. Some days I write, “I don’t feel like writing” over and over again. The important thing is your write something, anything. I’ve had the best ideas come out of me writing that I don’t want to write over and over and then half way through the 3rd page of that, an idea pops into my head and I write five more pages about that ideas!

Don’t be afraid of failure, not every idea will be good, in fact, the vast majority will be pretty bad, but each bad idea gets you closer to the good idea!

You’ve now got all the tools to get started creating your own magic tricks and routines!

-Louie