I read the first page, and don't have a ton of time to read the rest of the posts, so I'd like to contribute a bit myself. I hope I'm not too off topic with this, but...
I don't feel originality should come in the form of "new tricks". What is important is for the magician to create a "character". When performing, I am not me. I change who I am based on my audience (I'm specifically not talking about children's magic), and by tweaks I'd like to change over time. Sometimes I hear users on the board posting about "flow" and making a routine go smoothly together. But, the important question is, what exactly is "flow". This is, of course, my opinion, but I feel flow is having the routine make sense. Now, that "sense" shouldn't come from doing a card trick, to making the cards turn into a silk, to doing a trick with that silk. Sure, one wouldn't need to get new materials, and it would be a nice way to introduce the silk, but what is important is making the induvidual tricks make sense *to the character*.
The best way I can describe what a character is, in my opinion, is to go through a quick routine I do. I open with cards, and I talk about how susaptible people are to being readable. I do a card force, and go into talking about how the person is acting will indicate the value of the card, confidence being a high/face card, slouched being a low card, or something to that effect. I continue to ramble on nonsense like that, and people generally love it. Plus, it's hard to mess up. It takes a couple of minutes to do the trick, and to stay humble, I always say that it's what card hustlers, or professional gamblers do, and I do not make it into "this is something I can do", I simply show an example of it (I hope that made sense).
Next, I go into a 3 card monte routine I created (I'm sure I'm not the first to do it, but I don't know of it published anywhere). Again, I make the entire routine into what "really good hustlers do". I talk about the more advanced moves, but again, I stay humble.
Lastly, I'll finish up with a russian roulette using cups (Instinct by Matt Mello to be exact, awesome trick). That becomes the "ultimate gamble" for a cardman. Gambling his hands.
That takes 10-20 minutes most of the time, and I use it for a small group, something like 5-15 people. Now, the reason I feel that has flow to it, is becuase of how it all relates to my character, the gambling man. Naturally, I cannot do those things without the "trick", but audiences are led to believe my character can.
Establishing a character such as that is, in my opinion, the most important part of being a good magician. It also takes a ton of creativity and thinking to get something that works for oneself. Now, another problem I'd like to being up is the randomness to some tricks. This can both work for, or against the magicians favor. I'll use watermark, as I'm sure everyone here is familiar with it, as an example. I'm not sure how that would -ever- fit into a routine. However, it is an awesome and creative trick. It's the kind of thing I would show friends, people that know me, which makes it impossible to get into my stage character with, or someone that wants to see one quick trick, if they were considering booking me.
I'll be back to read the rest of the posts later, I'm anxious to see everyone's thoughts.
