Rule 2: Put Yourself in Their Shoes

In 1911 Nevil Maskelyne and David Devant, two of the premier magicians of the day, published Our Magic. In the first section, The Art in Magic, Meskelyne outlines 20 rules for magic performance. After well over 100 years, are these rules still relevant, and do they apply to more than magic?

Rule 2: Always endeavour to form an accurate conception of the point of view most likely to be adopted by a disinterested spectator.

It’s really good to be passionate about whatever it is you’re presenting. That passion and depth of knowledge can be engaging, even enthralling. However, it can also lead to a focus that, unless tempered, can be off-putting to many audiences.

Stephen King, drawing on an old writer's maxim, once wrote, “kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.” He was right. This can be particularly challenging as a magician. You spend weeks, possibly months (dare I say years?) perfecting a move. Of course you want to show it off. And so you crowbar it into a routine. The real difficulty is when other magicians watch you, realise the move you’ve just done, and applaud you for your skill. There’s a real risk of taking that deserved praise and thinking that because you, or a select few, appreciate something relatively niche, that it will appeal to everyone else, thinking that everyone will care.

They don’t.

In Our Magic: The Art in Magic, the Theory of Magic, the Practice of Magic, the book this rule comes from, the authors also discuss how only magicians can truly appreciate the skill needed for certain routines. Most audiences don’t have the understanding to ‘get’ why it’s good. That’s not their fault, it’s the nature of an audience. And it’s true of almost every audience you’ll ever stand in front of. It’s so important to not just engage with your audience, but also to be able to gauge what they need. This takes work. You need to imagine what your audience is looking for from you. There’s a very good chance they won’t be as knowledgeable as you are about your chosen subject. That means you need to put it into language they will understand. 

Within magic, that means focusing on the effect, rather than the method, but no matter whether you’re doing a stand-up routine or delivering a sales analysis report, it’s still true. Many of us have sat through presentations that are slide after slide of dense text, very likely with the presenter simply reading it out to the room, word for word. There may be some badly chosen clip art and a pie chart added in to spice things up, but they just make it all the more dull. It’s such a common thing it has its own phrase - ‘Death by PowerPoint’ - and yet it still happens day after day.

The mistake being made is that people are so busy focusing on the information they want to convey they ignore how they’re going to do it. There’s no point talking about a revolutionary idea if people are going to be bored to distraction when you do.

Your audience will tell you if they like what you’re doing. Shuffling or fidgeting, whispering to each other, even the dreaded glances at the mobile phone, these are all signs that whatever it is you’re trying to get across is failing. It might be impossible to change what you’re doing there and then, but remember if you can. Ideally you would record your performance and work out where and why you lost the audience. At the very least you should be able to do a voice recording of your presentation. Listen back, even if you’re not going to give the same talk/performance ever again. Which bits drag? Did you get a laugh when you expected one? Which bits really hit home.

Imagine you’re in that audience, listening to yourself. What would you do differently? Now, make those changes.

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