Paying Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain, or Ruining the Magic Trick for All the Right Reasons

My wife, Lisa, and I recently caught up on the final season of Lucifer (one of our favorite shows to stream) and when we got to the episode about the murder in the magic club, I felt personally called out. Called out, not because I’m a magician or even that I know any magic tricks save for one bad card trick and a few child-level “magic” gadgets for hiding coins in tiny plastic boxes. 

No, I felt called out because I have a tendency, nay, a calling to do exactly what Lucifer hated during the episode. Every time Chloe or any detective or magician’s assistant started to explain the trick in order to provide clues for the detective and forensic teams, he would poke his fingers into his ears and la-la-la-la so he wouldn’t discover the secret behind the trick. Ultimately, he desperately wanted to not lose the wonder of the magic. 

But that’s exactly what I do here at this blog in regard to the magic of writing and reading. I’ve been told that all this talk about how writing works and the nuts and bolts of the mechanics of the art can destroy the sense of wonder when the art works like it’s supposed to. 

Instead of letting the mystery of how Authors (with a capital A) create those wonderful worlds and characters and adventures settle and shakes its fairy dust all over the crowd, I actively dig in to see the clues behind the mysteries and the wires holding the fairies in the air and the hidden pocket all that fairy dust is coming from. Because, unlike stage magic, where few members of the audience have aspirations to be the magician, a relatively high percentage of readers do seek to become writers, and that percentage gets higher depending on the genre in question. Take comics for instance. Or Urban Fantasy. Or High Fantasy. Tucked away under readers’ stacks of books and graphic novels, you’re sure to find some scribbled (or even typed) pages of works in progress. It’s the nature of the beast. 

I want to actively demystify the Author and help the “rest of us” become better writers. I want all the capital “A”s in all those bios all over the web to just disappear as if Thanos snapped his fingers and dusted all Authors into just plain writers. That’s my goal. 

You see, I tend to observe it all through a different vantage point. I approach it in a far more Wizard of Oz way than a stage magician way. While the big scary head is shouting “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”, I’m desperately trying to sneak back there, like a deranged Toto, to see how it all works, to expose the secrets and make them my own.

However, I’m like that because I’m here for the writers. 

Read more: 

https://seanhtaylor.blogspot.com/2021/10/paying-attention-to-man-behind-curtain.html