Rule 19: The Rocky Road to the Top

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, Maskelyne outlines 24 rules for magic performance. After well over 100 years, are these rules still relevant, and do they apply to more than magic?

19: When a presentation includes a number of effects in series, the final effect should represent the true climax, and its predecessors successive steps whereby that climax is reached.

Whether you’re talking about a section within a presentation or a presentation as a whole, we all know you should finish with your ‘biggest hit’. The thing that’s going to get the most important reaction from your audience. Whether that be a standing ovation, increased understanding, or floods of tears. That’s all this is saying.

What is unsaid here however, and which is of vital importance, is the route you get there. You may think you work your way up to it gradually. In a way, that’s true, but that doesn’t mean you start with your least important or weakest point and build. Think of it like a graph:

Here we see a steady progress. If it were a comedy routine, each point would be laughs expected around a routine. If it were a talk about mindfulness, the points might be techniques on effective strategies to bring one's attention in the present, However, just because you want your biggest point to be last, that doesn’t necessarily follow that you’ll present them in this order. In fact, it is unlikely that you would do so. Instead, your presentation might look something like this:

A technique many professionals use is to start big. In fact, some people advocate putting your biggest moment first, to grab people’s attention, bring up their engagement, and build on that. Here’s a tip from magician Jay Sanky saying just that. Personally, I find that technique to be extremely risky. There’s nothing wrong with starting with something that - taken in isolation - would be as powerful as your final point. That is because by the end, if you have been successful with your presentation, your audience will be lifted and your final point will be more powerful because of all of the preceding work. However, it’s one you’re going to want to work on.

In truth. there is no real magic formula here to tell you what order to do things in. It’s about trial and error. Hopefully though, this rule will give you plenty of food for thought.

TFT
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