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Hello TalkMagic!.

I took up magic as a teenager. I fell in love with it. I consider myself to be a talented magician, and have been on/off professional for a few years.

When performing, I find myself to be smooth and confident. I play a cheeky-character who responds and improvises the act based on what's going on.

However I find myself using the same old patter. which falls into 2 categories.

• Instructional
• Challenge (show off-y)

I find myself either spending time saying "We'll take your card, place it in the middle *click* and it appears back on top" OR "You're holding your card, there is NO WAY I could touch that card, but yet *click*" (which feels like I'm showing them a puzzle, rather than performing.)

I'm just unsure how to add story to a lot of tricks. Ambitious Card for example, the only patter I can often think of is either instructional or some form of gambler's cheating routine.

How do you guys often come up with patter?
Are some tricks easier to tie stories to than others?
What ideas of patter would you use with an ambitious card routine?

Thank you guys, very much.

Im still working on patter myself, so i cant offer much help, but there are options for the ambitious card routine if you can think creatively. Check out David Regals routine for example.

Id imagine you could work a story into anything that disappears and reappears. How about drawing keys on the front and you always lose your keys until you buy a keyring, and when you clap your hands, the 'keys' make themselves appear. Or maybe a routine about films where theres always a taxi nearby when they whistle. You could have a deck from hollywood to help illustrate this with a cartoon car on the front?

Hope that helps

I consider myself as much a storyteller as a magician, and for me the patter is vastly more important than the trick.

It begins from your character. Most of my work is as a kids show worker or a mentalist. As a kids entertainer (not magician) I know my character. I am a strange guy who comes to the house to show the kids some odd things and tell them some strange stories. So if a trick does not fit in with that persona, it does not make it into the act. Persona comes first, then the trick. If the trick fits I then come up with patter - that is never a description of what I am doing, or a challenge!

An example might help. So many guys do sponge balls, by producing the sponge balls and going into the routine. I begin by noticing that a kid is not listening to me. I confront him about it, then pluck a ball from his ear, saying that it is ear wax, and that is the reason he wasn't listening to me; he couldn't hear me. I then chat about ear wax while doing the routine.

For my cards across I frame it as a lesson in pick pocketing, as every child needs to be trained in a good trade before going out into the world. Plenty of scope for humour and for expressing my character.

As a mentalist I play an intuitive psychic. That means some effects - book test - do not suit my persona. I love book tests, but they will never be part of my act. You choose your material to suit your persona, and you don't learn a trick and then try to work out the patter. You work on the patter and the trick at the same time. And if you have no ideas for the patter, drop the trick and find another one.

As for ambitious card, I can offer no help. It is one of my personal peeves - I would rather have my teeth pulled than watch another ambitious card! Best of luck.

Patter on the stage or for a kid show may well be different than patter for close up magic but I will tell you how I used to put it together for the latter. I would keep a notebook and think of all sorts of silly things to say and write them down but not for a specific trick. I would think of whimsical things and just write them down. Again I would emphasise that I did this before I even tried to learn a trick. After a good while I would have pages and pages in a notebook of whimsical words and phrases which may not have made any sense. For example I would write down things like "Martians" "lemons" "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall" "half a pound of tuppeny rice" "the eiffel tower". Just random thoughts, words and phrases that just came to me. For example I will do it now. I will pick up a book or something with printed material on and see what my aged brain can come up with. There. I just said the word "aged". That means "old" I can see that fitting in with all sorts of tricks. For example you can do a trick with an old coin such as an old English Penny or a half crown. You could say, "This is an old trick so I use old money". Or "The ace of spades is the oldest card in the pack". I am just making up this nonsense as I am writing but it may give you an idea.

Anyway, back to the book thing. I am looking round and cannot see a book but I do have an list of exhibitors at a trade show that I worked. Let me pick it up and see what I come up with. I see a company listed called Sundance Consulting so the phrase "dancing in the sunshine" comes to me. Or just "sunshine" or perhaps just "dancing". That should be enough for you to get the idea.

Now how does this apply to a trick? Well, once you have learned the mechanics of a trick you refer to the notebook full of nonsense words and phrases. If you use your imagination the notebook will help you come up with patter. And the patter will suit your personality and style and will be far better than pinching someone else's patter which may fit their personality and not yours.

OK. This is not going to be a great example because I am very limited since I don't actually have a notebook full of words and phrases like I did years ago so I will just make do with the few phrases I used above. OK. The Ambitious Card seems to have been named in this thread. Well if I look over the above few phrases I see the word "sunshine". That brings to mind the word "heat". So you could chatter about how the heat of your hands brings the card to the top.

I know the above may not be too inspiring an example but it should give you an idea of the method I used to use when I was younger. Of course nowadays I have been doing the same bloody tricks for years so I don't need the notebook any more but here is the idea for what it is worth. I have never explained this to anyone before. Make the most of it.

In my next post I I will post some advice about patter. A few decades ago I started to write a book for beginners on card tricks. I actually wrote five chapters which are now in my computer. It has never been published and probably won't be. Chapter two gave my ideas on presentation and there is some advice on patter therein. I will post it separately.

Here you are: I wrote this about thirty five years ago. I have just looked it over and I have not changed my beliefs one iota. Read it and see what you think:

.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Now where do you acquire this silver tongue, you may ask? It’s not really difficult; it just takes some application. First of all, after thoroughly learning the mechanics of a trick, why not spend a half hour or so thinking about what to say for it. Use your brain, that’s all you have to do. With a little imagination you should be able to come up with something. In fact, you can get ideas from almost anywhere. Look around you and see if there’s some object in sight that will give you an idea for a patter line. Perhaps you can pick up a book and browse through it in search of inspiration. Whatever you do try and make it interesting, even whimsical or perhaps a little nonsensical. You may prefer to make your tricks appear dark and mysterious. If so, mould your patter accordingly, but don’t try to be something you’re not. In other words, if you’re not really suited to being a comedian there’s no need to make yourself look ridiculous attempting to tell jokes with your tricks. Be natural, be yourself, but be entertaining.

Now of course this may create a conflict because you may not naturally be an entertaining personality. On one hand I am stating that you should be yourself and on the other hand I’m saying you should be entertaining. So you may well ask, “How am I supposed to be myself and be amusing at the same time? My conversation is as dull as dishwater, I don’t like speaking in public, I am naturally a quiet, shy person, so how am I supposed to transform to a product of Barnum and Bailey combined with shades of the Ringmaster to the Greatest Show on Earth?”

Actually the answer is you don’t. You will find that the more you perform card magic the more interesting your personality will become anyway. You don’t have to change overnight to a reincarnation of Dante, Blackstone, Houdini or any other great magician of the past. As time goes by your personality will become more interesting anyway. However, you do have to help it along a tiny bit. For example, if you should make an amusing remark extemporaneously try and remember it for future occasions. You will find as time goes by you will accumulate a stock of these remarks and you can weave them into your performances. If you think you’re as dull as dishwater and you lack confidence, don’t worry! Magic is an incredible confidence builder. Every time you hear gasps of astonishment it will do wonders for your morale.

We seem to have gone away from the subject under discussion, namely patter. Well, here we are again; all I have to say about it now is that I do NOT recommend learning it off by heart. You will certainly sound stilted and ten to one you will forget the words halfway through the trick. It’s a far better plan to get a general idea of what you wish to say, rehearse it aloud a few times with the cards in hand, going through the motions of the trick as you do, and finally when you come to perform you will sound more spontaneous than if you had learned the patter word for word. After many performances you will find that you tend to say the same words over and over again anyway, but with more flexibility. If someone interrupts you will not be put off whereas if the patter was learnt off by heart a break in the performance could throw you off completely.

Thank you very much everyone!

After applying what you said it allowed me to come up with a few ideas. I currently perform a short mid-routine where a spectator constantly re-chooses the same card over and over apparently down humourous coincidence. Taking this idea I'm currently visioning a nice amusing act.

We'll called the spectators Mark and John, for readability sake.

John selects a card, signs and returns to the deck.
Mark is then asked to select a second, different card. (Riffle force the same card)

Laughing, I return the card to the pack and ask Mark to quit `showing off` and choose a NEW CARD.

(riffle force again)

After Mark selects the same card for a second time, I "place" the card down on the table (switch). Teasing Mark to "Go on, try and find it now!"

(third riffle force)

Seeing Mark, who is likely to be grinning at this point, I say to John, "He hasn't has he? (picked the card)", turning over the card on the table, showing it has changed and that Mark is yet again holding the selected card.

(The general theme of the routine becoming a challenge for me to outsmart Mark who apparently is some form of sleight-of-hand genius showing off, keeping me from actually performing my act.)

John holds onto his card. Mark is given the 2 of diamonds. Both face down. John turns over his card revealing him to be holding the 2 of diamonds, "Mark" has switched the cards.

"Ok, lets start again." (move into an ambitious card routine where the card is constantly lost but changes into John's card whenever I try to hand it to Mark.)

Sighing and laughing of despair, realising I'm never going to be able to perform my act, I congratulate Mark on outsmarting me, before pausing and noticing something."

(I reach forward and produce the card from his ear)

Laugh and storm off "FOR PEACE SAKE MARK!"


- Rough script, but I kinda like the idea?

You're getting the idea!

"There is no place for challenge in magic" - Fred Kaps (?)
There is a school of thought that challenge has no place in magic. The theory is that the effect you perform should not be couched in terms of 'if I trick you I win and you lose'. The subtext of your patter and presentation should be along the lines of: "If you buy into this, just a little bit, then you will see something amazing which you have not seen before, and unless I'm there, you won't ever see again!"

You can get some good information on patter by reading books such as 'Magic and Showmanship' (Henning Nelms) and 'Strong Magic' (Darwin Ortiz), but to be honest, Mr Lewis has just saved you a few quid as he has expertly encapsulated what the books suggest. You would do well to heed his sage advice.

PS. Shouldn't that be "..for Pete's sake Mark!"?

There is also a school of thought that if you keep forcing the same card over and over again you give away the idea of a force. I think I agree with this but nevertheless I do it myself with a similar routine using the classic force. I therefore do not practice what I preach but then I am an exceptional human being and rules that apply to normal mortals naturally do not apply to me. Oddly enough I seem to remember this discussion on the classic force thread some time ago which was a discussion with Paul Green about his DVD.
But of course this is off topic and another whole discussion in itself.

I am not keen on challenge magic myself even though Slydini used to do it. But then Slydini, just like myself was an exceptional human being too. And besides he was fairly gentle in his challenging. I think you can get away with it if you have the right personality although I will concede that most don't.

But the last two paragraphs do confirm the wise remarks made by Faucett Ross that there is no rule in magic that cannot be broken. However, you should know the reason for the rule and the reason you are breaking it and have a good argument for it.

But back to patter which is what we are supposed to be talking about. One thing I should add and I type this with a note of desperation. I am constantly frustrated by magicians who TALK TOO MUCH. This is a particular fault with American magicians and I have seen it in Canada too. Old Murray the escapologist once said to me "American magicians are so long winded". That is why I found David Blaine to be a refreshing and merciful change. I have often thought his lack of presentation is superb presentation in itself.

Showmanship doesn't mean that you have to jabber and jabber and jabber. It drives me nuts. I first learned not to be verbose in the Royal Road to Card Magic which mentions that talking interminably can be tiresome. It is what I call "over presentation" and there are a LOT of supposedly top names in magic that do this. Again usually Americans. Of course being well known in the magic community is on a par with being well known in your apartment building and most of these allegedly top names are all broke. Not that I have a cynical nature of course.

By all means talk but only when you are doing something. Long winded introductions to tricks are anathema to me. Get on with the bloody thing. Sometimes the best chatter is to say nothing at all.

I don't have a formula sometimes the effect comes first, sometimes the story. But I don't perform anything unless I have the patter and I don't use a script per say. I have an idea with key points and I rely on reactions from the audience and play along with that.

However I always strive to keep in my mind that sense of wonder.

Sponge balls for example I don't call them sponge balls, and I don't use sponge bunnies although they are cute, I'm not a cute type of performer. For me they are the essence of magic.

"You know what this is?" holding the sponge ball, "It is magic. I know it is hard to believe but this little red ball is really the essence of magic. Sometimes you see it and sometimes you don't." Vanishes. "But if you keep believing it always makes itself known, sometimes it doubles, or even triples, sometimes in my hands, sometimes even in yours." And so it goes.

My coins across is a personal story about the first time I ever saw what I considered to be real magic. This fellow came into the magic store, (my father has a magic store in Montreal) this magi took out a mat and sat on it bare foot and cross legged. He had four coins and one by one they travelled just like this.

Has it happened the story above is true. And to this day I have no idea how he did it. My father who was there doesn't know. and another amazing Canadian magician who was also there has no idea. And while I've seen so many coins across his still is always in the forefront of my mind. It was the closest to the real think I've ever seen.

Often I try to use events in my life to mold my routines.

I'm quite new to the whole magic thing, but if DJed, sang, compared and ever been a Meat Loaf tribute artist and I think I cope better by NOT being myself.
I'm quiet shy really, but I can hide behind a funny magician or crazy mind reader.

I found wearing light sunglasses helped too. As well as saving an awkward eye contact people would ask about them and I would give them away.

intimaterush wrote:I found wearing light sunglasses helped too. As well as saving an awkward eye contact people would ask about them and I would give them away.

Not sure about this! Eye contact is good! Magic is about making connections with people and about interacting. The magic isn't done in your fingertips, but in their minds! So learn their names, talk to them, be interested in them, get to know them, and make eye contact!!!

(Plus eye contact demonstrates confidence! But not too much... then it becomes staring! )

That said, I love the idea of giving them away! It's always good to leave people with something unusual to give away! (Maybe a little IT, then give them away?)

Patter as and when needed - and LISTEN to both what YOU are saying and the reaction you are getting - then you can add/drop things as necessary. Some bits are essential (getting them to pick a card without asking them is going to be hard) so instruction is fine - telling them what you are doing is probably NOT fine - they have eyes and can see it. Obviously (I hope) avoid jargon - I'd include DECK in that - in the UK we have packs of cards - and of course Silk (a what?!). Probably just me (!).