Scripting Magic

THE BLURB:
Pete McCabe and 26 other guys show you the art of scripting
magic. Includes 45 scripts, 13 essays, 7 interviews, and 1
flowchart to make you a better magician.

Contributing magicians include:

    * Michael Ammar
    * Jon Armstrong
    * Bruce Barnett
    * Rafael Benatar
    * Eugene Burger
    * Michael Close
    * Bob Farmer
    * Paul Green
    * Eric Henning
    * Guy Hollingworth
    * Larry Jennings
    * Mark Joerger
    * Kenton Knepper
    * Jonathan Levit
    * John Lovick
    * Max Maven
    * Eric Mead
    * Sean O'neill
    * Gary Ouellet
    * David Regal
    * Jim Steinmeyer
    * Vic Sussman
    * Jamy Ian Swiss
    * Teller
    * Joe M Turner
    * and Larry White

Excerpt from the book:

"They did it because they believe that scripting your magic
will make you a better magician. They all believe that
scripting can make you more effective, more entertaining,
more dramatic, and most of all, more magical." -Pete McCabe

A few Chapters include:

- Eugene Burger and John Lovick: A Theatrical Endeavor

- Johnathan Levit: An Actor Playing the Part of a Magician

- Max Maven: Scripting Tricks

- Teller: Entering Uncharted Terrain

- and many more!

Pages 454 - Hardbound

MY COMMENTS:
Mentalists talk too much. Really. They do. And that's a
big reason why many find mentalism boring. A great deal of
mentalism performers just don't seem to know how to use
brevity with their patter. Part of it is that they don't
script out their routines in advance so that they can
examine each line, each joke, each word, and each action to
make sure that it's needed or eliminate it if it's not.
Moreso than magicians, a good mentalism performance is
defined by what they say. With magic, if the visual wonder
is stupendous, it's still entertaining. With mentalism,
it's all words and so it's essential that you have a good
script.

This book, then, fills a much needed gap in performance
literature. It examines scripts and scriptwriting in a way
that no other publication has done. There are dozens of
examples of scripts for various effects. There are also
enlightening discussions by masters of magic and mentalism
about how to craft and edit a script. The book, as you can
tell from the blurb, is a 454-page book lovingly devoted to
craft of performance scripts and scriptwriting. Hopefully,
after reading this, you will learn how invaluable it is to
script out every routine you intend to perform, however
you're comfortable doing it, so that your performances will
be tight and memorable.

Since I've gotten this book, I've been reading and
re-reading this book. I stayed up way past my bedtime being
engrossed in this, and I do script and know how to do it.
But it's always fascinating to learn how others do it.
About the only thing that I can find that I really would
have liked to see is someone go through their actual
process of editing a script. In other words, we see a
first and final draft and discussions of the evolution
of it. But this is a minor quibble and possibly an
exercise that I may do and share with folks. In any case,
this book may have the word "magic" in the title, but the
principles definitely apply to mentalists as well. There is
no question that not only is this book highly recommended,
it is a book which every performer should obtain, study, and
benefit from.