A Guide to Forcing Techniques for Magicians

After a series of close-up effects, the performer announces that the next effect will need someone to think of a country somewhere in the world. Immediately, they pull a small notepad from their pocket, with the names of countries written on it, and hand it to a spectator so the spectator can choose one.

In a stage show, after a series of big visual routines, the performer pulls out a deck of cards and gestures something towards the spectator beside them, who says "Stop" and takes a card. It looks like they've chosen one, but the audience isn't sure: it was difficult to see.

I’m sure you’ve seen these before. In focusing too much on accomplishing a force, the performer may lose sight of what’s natural for that place, at that time.

Often, as magicians, we experience forces as tight, necessary passages, to be accomplished quickly and somewhat reluctantly. We just want to move on to the part of the effect where that choice can be called "free", and finally reach a big reveal.

We often forget to look after the moment of the force itself.

To get the best out of a force, you need two elements:

If we settle for copying just any method used by another performer in a different context, or if we bring a close-up method onto the stage, we might end up with a weaker technique.

The best way to approach any force is to see it not as an unavoidable step, a bottleneck to rush through, but as a funnel.

A good force works in stages: it slowly narrows the audience's range of choice in a natural, "necessary" way. It isn't artificially imposed by the performer; it emerges without friction within the context of the routine.

Seeing every force as a funnel compels you to widen your view of where the force begins and where it ends.

The best forces are built as funnels, made up of multiple layers.

The main layer controls (and, where possible, increases) the number of perceived options from which a choice is made.

Put a hundred decks of cards on the table and ask the spectator to carefully choose one of them, shuffle it and then pick a card. Mentally, it feels as though the choice is 1 in 52×100; when in fact it's nothing more than 1 in 52.

The perceived possibilities can be greater than the real ones. 

And that's without even using an actual method!

Then, you add one more layer: make those hundred decks one-way. In this way, the force is even more effective, and you already know the chosen card.

The result: asking someone to name a playing card would have felt less random and more forced than having them choose a deck and pluck out a card. 

The simplest layer to add to a force is to introduce inconsequential choices in the funnel: choices the spectator will make, but that have no impact on the outcome of the process - such as which deck to use for the trick. These are called dumb forces. 

The choosing process should take place within a frame that's perceived as natural.

If you ask a spectator to think of a number between 1 and 50, you're the one setting the parameters. There might be nothing wrong with that, but a different process could make this feel more natural.

You can take a book of about 50 pages and ask the spectator to open it, remember the page number, and close it immediately.

You've achieved the same result (the spectator will have thought of a number between 1 and 50), but in the second case you've given the process a more natural framing. You’ve made the restriction an unsaid necessity imposed by the framing itself.

Then, you can introduce one more layer: multiple outs.

Take a force routine you already perform. Instead of funnelling the spectator down to a single item, craft it so they land on two — and let them freely pick one. Then cover that gap with a multiple out.

We’re sometimes afraid of multiple outs, because we're not used to having much real margin of freedom in the methods we use.

But it only takes one real choice to cancel the idea of a bigger force in the spectator's mind.

The multiple-out layer combines particularly well with a narrowing force that starts in the pre-show.

If the pre-show is used to narrow down the items the spectator can select, it's still good to give the spectator two or three real choices, so that during the performance they can make a genuine choice.

Before the show, an assistant may approach the spectator and explain that, for copyright reasons, the only drinks they could name were limited to twenty-five options (Pepsi, Red Bull, etc.). The assistant has written two drinks on each blank card to create a small packet of options, and the spectator can choose any card, then freely select one of the two drinks (this final choice is free, but only after the initial card selection is forced).

Another common justification would be that the performer “wants to ensure that a different drink is chosen at every show,” which is why you have written drinks that have never been chosen before. This framing works well because it connotes a broadening of the range rather than a restriction. 

Justification is crucial: on television, copyright is a useful justification, as it might be on a cruise ship, but with many live shows, the desire for a new selection every night might be stronger. 

Dual reality can also be used to add a layer to a force. In this case, we call it a dual force.

One example is to use billets with options written on them, such as "Taylor Swift", "Ricky Gervais", and so on, while the one the spectator chooses has "Adele singing Rolling in the Deep " written on it. 

The rest of the audience will think the spectator chose "Adele" and then freely chose a song, when you ask them to picture Adele singing a song on stage. 

An exceptional method for doing dual forces in parlour contexts is Tom Stone's Factory Blanks, which lets you force any card from a deck the audience sees to be completely blank.

A fundamental layer for any force is that the spectator is actively involved in the process of choice. The more active their participation, the freer their choice will seem, not only to the rest of the audience but to the spectator themselves.

It's the reason the cross-cut force is consistently held by top magicians to be the most effective one around: because it's the spectator who cuts the deck with their own hands.

Active choice can be concrete or mental. Asking a person to think of a very long word among those written on a page is an excellent way to narrow a force: it narrows the choices down to a multiple out, while at the same time letting the spectator choose actively, rather than passively. The difference between them scanning a full page versus reading a simple list of seven words is essential.