Essay: The Importance of Structure

[William Draven]

Disclaimer: I can not take credit for this essay. This essay was written by Sean over at Ellusionist forums, and after reading it I felt it was good enough that it should be shared here. I do not own the rights to this intellectual property, I am just reposting this for your education. If the act of reposting this essay is offensive to the creator, or anyone else who can claim legal rights to the intellectual property in question then please let me know, and I'll remove it as soon as possible. Thank you!

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In my last entry, I mentioned that virtually all magicians today are missing a theme to their acts. This time around, I want to talk about something that they all have, but most have it wrong; structure.

Structure of your performance is paramount to the overall effectiveness of said performance, and unfortunately most magicians today simply misunderstand how to structure a performance.

Throwing your favorite effects together, ending with your biggest trick is not structure, it is not a routine or a show. It is a magic demonstration. How many times have you seen a magician simply wheel different boxes on and off the stage?

Structure is inherently intertwined with theme; if you have a strong theme, the structure will almost come automatically.

What exactly is structure? Simply put, it is the order of your show. It is what tricks you do in what order, and why. Structure is there to act as a vehicle for theme, and ultimately deliver the big finish.

The traditional three act story structure (setup, conflict, resolution) is how most magic acts should be organized, but sadly are not.

In ‘Magic & Showmanship for Magicians’ (a book all serious magicians should own), Henning Nelms touches on act structure, and while it is not overtly stated, the structure he encourages readers to follow is indeed Aristotles 3 story act structure.

The whole idea behind the three story act is to introduce an idea, explore various ideas within the idea, and end with a satisfying demonstration or conclusion. You want to be building to something, something relevant to the rest of your show. Each act should build on the idea developed in the previous act, building to the big finish. Not just your biggest illusion, but the best possible illustration for your entire show.

For example, a show about gambling might look like this:

Act 1 – The Setup
Performer introduces the idea of gambling, and how for as long as people have been gambling, others have been cheating. Cards, dice, cups & balls; if people are willing to bet on it, people will try to cheat at it.
(Routines performed would be ‘Guess Which Hand’, ‘Cups & Balls’ or 3 Shells)

Act 2 – The Turn
Performer explains that soon after, gamblers graduated to cards, and card games. And so did the cheats.
(Routines performed would be a standard ‘Gambling Demonstration’, ‘Card Calling’)

Act 3 – The Sting
Performer explains that today, there is no shortage of what people can, and will gamble on. Casinos and lotteries are more popular today than ever before…
(Routines performed would be a ‘Lottery Prediction’)

This is a very sparse and basic example, but hopefully you can see the progression of theme, along the structure, building to the best illustration of the theme possible. The performer is discussing the history of gambling, and cheating. He starts with a simple game of ‘Guess Which Hand’, progresses to more difficult, and impressive, card cheating, and ends with the most logical conclusion for a cheat; to cheat the lottery, by predicting the winning numbers.

One needn’t look any further than Darren Brown to see this structure in action. In ‘An Evening of Wonders’, Brown introduces a banana, stating that before the end of the show, a gorilla will come out on stage, and take the banana, and they won’t see it happen. This is all introduced in the first 5 minutes, and it perfectly frames not only the show, but the conclusion the show comes to. It is brilliant, and I recommend all readers to check it out. He has a similar structure in his show ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’, but this time the whole show revolves around influence. Again, I won’t spoil the surprise, but rest assured it too kicks ass.

Do you structure your show? If so, does the structure follow your theme? Does your show naturally build to a logical conclusion? Do you even agree with me?

Let me know in the comments section; let’s talk about this.

Represent.

-Sean

 

[Toby]

Good essay. Not extremely helpful, but thought provoking. He makes it sound a lot easier that it is. We should have contest in structuring. We get like 5 famous effects (that 99% of us knows), and see who can come up with best structure and plot.

 

[redwulfe]

This is a good basic introduction to story elements in an attempt to help people develop them. However it is a bit to basic when you look at story as it is viewed today. I Aristotle's days the structures he and others of that time laid out where followed strictly and to the letter for the most part plays in those times where very rigged and typically were used to tell a fact or explore an idea philosophically. Even the characters within the plays had a structure and where based on philosophical idea or templates. their was not much room to grow and there was many who thought you shouldn't go outside of this box. The three part story progression was a very basic look at what truly goes on in a story or in most case a debate that was played out with players in the theatre while you sat and relaxed your whole day away. The current 5-6 point model is IMHO more detailed, easier to understand and suits performance of story better. Now that is not to say that this is the style you are going for. Not all presentations should use this. If exploration of ideas or telling of history or other non-story driven presentations are what you are looking for then I think the three part model will serve you just fine. but if you want to add more drama or theatricality to your performance then I would go with the more modern approach. For those that do not know the model is Exposition-(complication)-Rise of Conflict-Climax-Falling Action- Denouement. Complication is a marking point to divide the Exposition from the Rise of Conflict but in some peoples opinions it is an element all unto its own. So to use the original persons example we can see:

Exposition- Introduction to characters and the idea of the performance
since the dawn of time there has been gambling and gamblers. Many common day items where used for gambling and as long as their have been gamblers their have been cheats. (three shell game, cups and balls.. so on.)

Complication- Where the obstacle is presented, the thing that will drive the rise the conflict and increase the drama to the climax.
here you talk about how as time moved on the methods used to catch the cheats increased and the cheat had to evolve or be left behind. (Do some sort of a sucker effect to show that you can be caught and then explain that as they caught them the means of fooling became better and end the sucker effect. introduce new technology for gambling that the cheats had to master and quickly.. so on.)

Rise of conflict- Where the drama or suspense mounts
Cheating became harder and harder and the cheats became more and more skillful (increasingly more amazing and difficult feats of sleight of hand.)

Climax- This is where it is all on the line. This is where the obstacle is either overcome or everything is lost.
Today cameras and motion sensors and blah impossible odds are stacked against the cheat, but the card still appears on top of the deck. something or other. (The audience should be on the edge of their seats at this point if you structured the routine correctly, and they should want you to succeed if you built a rapport with them, this is another topic altogether. at this point you overcome what seems to be impossible odds.)

Falling conflict- this is where the tension relaxes and the story is starting to resolve.
Gambling will always be around

Denouement- this is the conclusion of the story or demonstration.
But so will the cheats.

I am just putting this up of the top of my head. The point is that their are other structures besides the one presented so look to see which fits your routine, I agree that structure is very important and thanks to the OP and the person that wrote the essay it is well received. Not every step in the 5-6 step approach needs an effect. but you should look at your magic in a story driven manor if you want to do better with your performances. Remember this is a performance art. Hopefully everyone can talk more about this as we go along, but I must get back to work.

Red