A Jerxian Breakthrough

There’s a certain style of magic I write about frequently here that I describe as “immersive fiction” or the “Romantic Adventure” performance style. That’s where the goal is for the trick to feel less like a demonstration and more like an (obviously) fictional story that they are taking a part in. In a previous post I described this as a direction that magic might evolve towards in the future (for certain types of performers).

I wrote:

I suspect magic will be seen as a form of experiential storytelling. Instead of being a one person exhibition (like being a juggler or ventriloquist) it will be more aligned with things like escape rooms, haunted houses, or parlour games. I think magic won't be seen as something you do, but an experience you create. The best magicians will be those who craft the best immersive stories for people.

The issue with this is that it’s kind of an unusual way to present magic. And while I find it to be wildly more enjoyable for people to experience than a traditional “demonstration of my magic skills,” it’s also something they’re not used to. There’s a learning curve involved when it comes to enjoying this sort of performance because it doesn’t really work well if the spectator has the typical mindset people often approach magic with: “You’re going to try and fool me, and my goal is to try and figure it out.” Having their guard up means they’re not appreciating the story because they’re questioning it. That’s not an attitude that helps them get immersed in what you’re showing them. “Wait… your aunt wasn’t a gypsy. I’ve met your aunts.” That’s not the vibe you want them to have.

The ideal mindset I want my spectators to have is, “This story is meant to be fictional, so I can just let myself get lost in it without questioning things. And I’m not going to figure out the magic no matter how hard I try, so I might as well sit back and enjoy it.”

That’s the “ideal,” mind you. I’m not saying everyone I perform for has this mindset.

The hard part of this style of magic is really getting people somewhere near that point. Magic—especially amateur magic—is almost defined by the “challenge” of it. So coming at it from a different perspective can be difficult for people.

For a long time, the only method I had in my arsenal to get people prepared for this type of performance was to slowly introduce it to them over the course of many performances. The post I’ve linked to the most on this site is this Bedrock post where I talk, step by step, about how I go about doing that. It’s a long process, but it’s an enjoyable one for me.

But now I’ve found a shortcut to get people up to speed on what I’m going for much faster.

This was really a breakthrough for me, and it’s so obvious and stupid that it shouldn’t have been, but it is.

Here’s my big breakthrough. Here’s how I get people to expect a different type of magic experience…

I tell them.

I just tell them that I make up stories to go along with the tricks, or to give the tricks the feeling of a weird experience or something like that.

This doesn’t get them prepared to sit through a 90 minute immersive trick. But it does get them to used to the idea that we both know this is meant to be a fictional little bit of entertainment, and not to get too worked up about trying to “catch me” when the story is unfolding.

I stumbled over this when I pulled out the trick Kids Kards for the first time in a while. Someone I didn’t know too well was at my place and I told her something truthful. I said, “Oh, this is a trick I used to do a lot but I stopped doing it. I would tell people this story about me dating this elementary school teacher and how I would visit the classroom and do a trick every now and again. And at the end of the year the kids made me this deck of cards. And blah, blah, blah. But the problem was, people were really believing the story. And they were getting emotionally invested in these kids and this relationship. And I didn’t want that. I was just trying to show them something fun. Here, I’ll show you.”

Then I went into the trick with my old presentation. And she was immediately onboard. Because she knew it was a made-up story, she could just let herself go along with it. She didn’t have to question whether I believed it or whether I wanted her to believe it. She could just enjoy it. And then, later in the evening when I went into another trick, she again instantly realized what the situation was. I didn’t have to explain to her again what the deal was, because I had already established the type of thing to expect.

And I’ve had similar success with other people. I just have to say something, anything really, that lets them understand that I like to use magic to create the feeling of going through some weird experience. That these stories are intended to be fictional and just for their enjoyment.

I would say that I still prefer taking the long way to get to this point and slowly getting them accustomed to this style of performance. But if I want to move that process along, or if I’m not going to have that much time with the person, this technique allows me to get into some more interesting performances, without freaking them out, and without the intermediary steps along the way