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helo again.
i was just wondering if anyone has any tips on how to go about creating a new trick. from personal experience or other.

any trick with a deck of cards.

Start with the revelation and try to work out a method is how most people go about it.

That's the easiest way. Try to think of something that will have a definite impact on the audience, or think of a nice end result, then work out how you will be able to achieve that with the cards.

What I like to do is to try to think of something that would be absaloutly impossible to do with cards. Then, I think of sleights I could use or how I could pre-arrange the deck to make it possible. This doesn't always work, but I've created some of my best effects this way.

thanks.

does revelation mean ending or revealing? sorry for being thick.

I always start with a concept. Whether it be an idea/story or just something which is based on experience.

Then, I write down a few ideas of the mechanics—i.e. what happens magically. Usually this can involve jotting down the end result first (i.e. as said above, the revelation) and then working to that.

Following the original 'story' or premise, I then work out a way to add some sizzle along the way.

This gives a very rewarding method for inventing not just card effects, but all sorts of other revelations/tricks.

Mikey.666 wrote:thanks.

does revelation mean ending or revealing? sorry for being thick.

Well, revelation in this context means to reveal and how you do that can affect the impact. Derren Brown talks about this in Absolute Magic under "Unnerving Reveals" and a lot of others do too. Darwin Ortiz, for instance in Strong Magic.

What you're trying to do is reveal something in a way that makes the spectator understand that what you've done is impossible with the highest psychological impact possible. So, as per Seige, building a story around the trick is also vital. You have to supply a narrative that takes the spec from the initial premise to the revelation in such a way that it is imposible for him to backtrack to the real cause.

Just another note, dont be thinking "OMG I NEED TO THINK OF A NEW METHOD!! THIS ONE HAS BEEN USED BEFORE IN ANOTHER SITUATION!!".

It is the effect that matters so if you need to use a duplicate card, do it. If you need to palm a card then palm it. Dont try to be unique by inventing moves that havent been done.. use those methods to your advantage and take a simple method and turn it into an outstanding trick!

Anyway ... Mostly when you "invent" or create an effect or move, you eventually find out it has been created long time ago by someone else.

^

That has happened to me quite a few times

You should buy Sankey's Create Your Own Magic. It helps out a ton. I watched about 15 minutes of it and went and created three routines! It's a lot of fun to watch and it is totally worth it. Jay has some excellent advise that should be carefully followed.

Where can you buy that?

Anakin77 wrote:Anyway ... Mostly when you "invent" or create an effect or move, you eventually find out it has been created long time ago by someone else.

/

this is the kind of thinking that leads to me creating a trick on my own and just automatically assuming it had been created befor. i'd been doing GLS vanishes for months befor i found out it was original. it turns out my tenkai palm false replacement might be on the original side (came up with that about a year ago) but it's just a move and you can't really make one trick around it, so nevermind. might slap an instructional up at some point