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- A MacGuffin is a plot device that either serves as a catalyst for the action in a story. It can be a goal, person, object, or idea the characters are in pursuit of, and it generally needs to be revealed in the first act. Typically, a MacGuffin will not have any identity of its own, and it can be interchangeable.
www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-a-macguffin-definition/What is a MacGuffin — Definition and Examples for Screenwriters
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Sep 25, 2022 · What Does a MacGuffin Do? A MacGuffin is a plot device that either serves as a catalyst for the action in a story. It can be a goal, person, object, or idea the characters are in pursuit of, and it generally needs to be revealed in the first act. Typically, a MacGuffin will not have any identity of its own, and it can be interchangeable.
- What Is A MacGuffin?
- Earliest Use of A MacGuffin
- If The MacGuffin Isn’T Important, Then What is?
- The Title Can Illuminate The MacGuffin
- A Sports Analogy
- The Ultimate MacGuffin
- The MacGuffin Is What The Villain Wants — Except When It’S not.
- The MacGuffin Can Be More Than One thing.
- MacGuffins: They’Re Not Just For Thrillers anymore.
- A Versatile device.
DOWNLOAD THE CRIME CHEAT SHEET The term is associated with British director Alfred Hitchcock, although Wikipedia informs us that it was actually one of his screenwriters, Angus Macphail, who coined the term. However, it is certainly Hitchcock that popularized the word. Hitchcock described it as a particular kind of plot device. In a 1939 lecture at...
Hitchcock’s 1935 movie, The 39 Steps,is often cited as one of his earliest uses of a MacGuffin. The protagonist, Richard Hannay meets a woman who tells him that she’s a spy and is then promptly murdered. On the run from the authorities, who suspect him of the murder, Hannay tries to clear his name by finding the enemy spy ring the woman referred to...
Let’s take an example. Say you’re writing a Thrillerwhere the MacGuffin is a deadly virus that can wipe out 99% of the human race. Here are some questions you need to answer that will drive the story in different directions. 1. Does the Villain already have the virus? In that case it’s the Hero’s job to take it from her and/or destroy it. 2. Does t...
Quite often, the story’s MacGuffin is right there in the title. You want examples? We’ve got examples. The Maltese Falcon, The Sword of Shannara, The Da Vinci Code, The Pink Panther, The Book of Eli, The Hot Rock, The Matlock Paper, The Bourne Identity (really, you could make a list out of just Ludlum novels), any book or movie titled The ___ Scrol...
You can think of MacGuffins in terms of an analogy to sports. In basketball, the court is divided down the middle. Each team has a basket they’re defending while trying to get the ball in the other team’s basket. In (American) football, the field is divided down the middle. Each team has an end zone they’re defending while trying to get a touchdown...
Probably the ultimate MacGuffin is the Holy Grail. The grail is the object sought by various knights in the Arthurian cycle of stories and is purported to have magical healing powers. It is the decision to quest for the grail that is the Inciting Incident of all the knights’ adventures. Originally just a grail with mystical powers in a romance enti...
It can be the object of the Hero’s quest.
As we’ve seen in the case of the Grail stories, the MacGuffin can be what the Hero wants or needs in order to solve some problem or attain some end; there needn’t be a villain who is also after it. In Lorenzo’s Oil, Augusto and Michaela Odone seek a cure for their son’s rare illness. In this case, no such cure exists. The couple has to create the MacGuffin — the Oil in the title.
The MacGuffin can be the villain or force of antagonism.
In Bird Box, the MacGuffin is the — whatever — that causes people who see it to go mad and commit suicide. At the beginning of the story, we’re intensely curious about what it is that can so radically and destructively alter the behavior of anyone who catches even a glimpse of it. We have many questions: Is it something natural or supernatural? Is it extraterrestrial? Where did it come from? Is it safe to see a recorded image of it? Is it one thing or many? And the overriding question, What t...
The MacGuffin can be something the villain wants to destroy, rather than possess.
It’s her Kryptonite, her Achilles’ Heel, the thing that can bring her down. This is the case in The Sword of Shannara, which otherwise more or less follows the plot of The Lord of the Rings.In the latter, Sauron wants to recover the One Ring to augment his power, while Frodo and company are tasked with destroying it. In the former, the eponymous Sword is the one thing that can destroy the villain Brona, and it is Flick Ohlmsford’s job to find the Sword and use it for its intended purpose, whi...
It could be a series of objects, each presenting a different and more challenging test or trial to the Hero. Or there could be a kind of treasure hunt, where each object provides a clue to the next one. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, there are four MacGuffins. The first one is the golden idol in the opening sequence. Its main purpose is to show us Ind...
In Chapter 32 of The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know,Shawn Coyne discusses the Conventions and Obligatory Scenes of a Thriller, and it is here that he first brings up the concept of the MacGuffin: But MacGuffins aren’t confined solely to thrillers. As we’ve seen in examples above, they can be the object of a quest where there is no external vill...
Like a gadget in a 3 A.M. infomercial, the MacGuffin is a very versatile device. It can be as nondescript and meaningless as “government secrets” or as heart-wrenching as the protagonist’s fatally ill child, as in 2002’s John Q. Your Macguffin can be one thing or many. It can be a person (Kaitlin Costello, the witness in The Verdict), a place (the ...
In fiction, a MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin) is an object, device, or event that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in itself.
- Georgia May
- The One Ring in The Lord of the Rings (2001) The Lord of the Rings was written by J. R. R. Tolkien in the 1950s, but it was Peter Jackson's illustrious movie adaptation that brought the epic story of The One Ring to visual life.
- The Briefcase in Pulp Fiction (1994) Pulp Fiction is one of the most oft-cited movies when it comes to the MacGuffin. Quentin Tarantino's crime drama famously implements a MacGuffin that viewers never actually get to see, which is probably why we find it so intriguing...
- Rosebud in Citizen Kane (1941) Rosebud is one of the most famous, sacred, and ultimately pointless MacGuffins in cinema history. Orson Welles flexes his talent for smart, thought-provoking filmmaking with Citizen Kane, and his use of the MacGuffin is a large element in that.
- The Rug in The Big Lebowski (1998) We love this MacGuffin because it's so stupid and yet so funny. The Big Lebowski is a cult classic stoner-flick that became so popular that it even sparked its own religion.
Feb 6, 2024 · A MacGuffin is a term used in film and literature to describe an object, device, or event that serves as the trigger for the plot, but which itself is not really important to the overall narrative. The MacGuffin is often what the protagonist is after, but its specific nature is inconsequential to the story's outcome.
MacGuffin, element in a work of fiction that drives the plot and motivates the characters despite being relatively insignificant to the story. A story’s MacGuffin can take the form of an object, event, or character. It can be replaced by virtually any other object, event, or character as the story.
Sep 2, 2022 · In every story about espionage, mystery, or suspense, there is an object or objective that motivates the characters. This plot device is called a MacGuffin. Whether it is the secret plans in a spy thriller or the jewels in a heist movie, the MacGuffin is a red herring that compels readers or audiences to dive into a story.
