talkmagic.co.uk

I'm writing a story about a magician and I need some help. The basis of the story is a stage magician is set to do the most amazing stage show ever. During the last trick, a variation of being sawed in half, something goes wrong and the magician goes into a coma. During his coma state he awakes with the devil standing at his feet. The devil offers to give the magician real magical powers in exchange for his soul. The magician takes the deal, of course, but we all know when you make a deal with the devil bad things tend to happen. I'm not telling any more about the story to keep spoilers out.

At any rate, what I need to know is how can I go about writing the opening part where he sets up and performs this amazing stage show without going into the details of how he does his tricks. I don't want to expose any magic in the story, but I'd like to be able to go into detail about what's going through the magician's mind and the details of how he does some of the tricks. What is your opinion on the subject? Any advice is appreciated.

JAlexBrown

I'd say for the opening you could vivdly describe what's happening from a spectators point of view. As the story progresses reveal more and more by adding in techniques of the effects little by little.

I like joshes idea

heres a second idea though. you could "expose" how he does the trick. but instead of exposing a real method. Make up your own that most likely wouldn't work but you can make in work for the story.

You can expose the basic sawing in half method. The duplicate person part. It's been so exposed, you won't be harming anyone by doing it. Modern performers of the effect has ways of canceling out that possibility in the minds of the audience.

Maybe you can 'expose' some pseudo-psychological nonsense ala Derren Brown. That might actually be more interesting than physical methods.

Thanks. I've got some nice ideas going now. I appreciate the suggestions. You've made my night a whole lot easier.

JAlexBrown

I may have misread, but you said 'the magician gets real magic powers in exchange for his soul'

So... does he need 'methods' at the start ???

That's later on in the story Seige!

I'd love to hear the story after it's finished. Creative writing is fun to me

Indeed... but what I am saying is, the story is a fantasy, so why would real-world methods enter the plotline at all, other than to create a juxtaposition?

I can see that you may feel the need to set the scene with this, but surely you only need to to 'skim over' the first part and get straight into the soul-selling—which is much more interesting in a book.

Granted, you may want to pad this out if it were a movie or screenplay, but it isn't, it's a book. It works a lot differently.

I would primarily concentrate on building the character of the magician BEFORE the accident, rather than worry about methods.

In fact, surely your 'method' can be fantastical too, as who KNOWS how it's done, right?

I'd write the first section as a prologue from the third person's perspective.

How about a slight change to the story line? Make the magician more of a bumbling wannabe whose shows always fall apart and end with him being laughed off stage. Would give him more reason to take the devils deal. Just an idea...

That's a great suggestion by Lomster...

Avoid the issue by writing the first part as an observer, rather than from the 'inside'.

or...if you could, describe it from the devil's point of view, watching it whilst in the crowd and you have like an inner-monologue from the devil...how easy he would be to tempt that kinda thing...

that way, the reader "sees" what's happening on stage, but there's no need to expose anything at all...

I really like the idea of writing from the devils point of view

that would really add something to the book

If it would be okay with the mods, I will post the first chapter when I'm done with it for reviews and critique. I'll consult a mod first and ask about posting such a lengthy post. If they say it's okay then I'll post the first chapter when I'm done writing it (hopefully sometime soon, with any luck).

JAlexBrown