Egg MacGuffin (with cheese)

Ordinary_Guy · Jul 27, 2006

Okay... the Deus ex thread inspired this question:

How many folk use a "MacGuffin" as a plot device?
What do you think of MacGuffins?

For those that forgot, a "MacGuffin" is an empty goal, strictly a plot device meant to move the story along.

Personally, I can't stand 'em - but I can think of at least one great movie that used it: Ronin.

...How 'bout it folks? Is Mr. MacGuffin a literary powerhouse or a plot tool waiting to misfire?

gromhard · Jul 27, 2006

Well by your definition "a strictly plot device meant to move the story along."

What ISN'T a MacGuffin?

In Ronin are you referring to the case? What? They were all hunting for the case, that was the plot. No case, no movie.

Maybe I'm not understanding a "MacGuffin"

Cath · Jul 27, 2006

I've always read that the Maltese Falcon was a classic McGuffin, so yes, I guess the case in Ronin would be one too.

I've never used one, but I can see the charm if you're stuck for a plot line.

emeraldcite · Jul 27, 2006

The glowing suitcase in Pulp Fiction is a macguffin.

It is used as a tool to advance the plot, but it is not important to the plot.

For example, the suitcase is never explained, but it is used to introduce characters and set up later scenes.

Soccer Mom · Jul 27, 2006

I always heard a slightly different definition of a McGuffin. I thought it was something to distract the audience from the real focus of a scene or story. Sure it moves the plot and it sdoesn't really matter what it is. I seem to remember Alfred Hitchcock discussing it as a favorite trick. For example, in Psycho we are led to believe the story is about Marion stealing the money and fleeing. It isn't. It is about psycho Norman, but the focus on Marion is what makes the shower scene so shocking. We didn't see it coming.

That is what I was taught that a 'McGuffin' was. Then again, I'm not exactly a film student.

maestrowork · Jul 27, 2006

Jenet Leigh's story line in Psycho was a perfect Maguffin, as well as the suitcase in Pulp Fiction. It could be a plot, or a prop, but the point is the same. It leads the audience to believe the main story/plot is about something but it really isn't, but it advances the main plot nonetheless. I haven't read any novel that uses that device nor have I used one myself. I think it could be useful to throw the readers for a loop and creates added suspense.

LeeFlower · Jul 27, 2006

Sometimes they have uses. If you've seen the episode of Firefly called Jaynestown, the cargo the crew has supposedly come to collect is a complete Maguffin. They need to have a reason to be on the planet-- boom! undefined cargo! Suddenly the real plot can begin. But it served it's purpose and wasn't distracting.

Obviously that's no always the case, though.

ruecole · Jul 27, 2006

I've never heard this term before, but I suspect I may be using it in my current novel.

I needed something to happen so my MC would go stay with her mother and the real story could begin--so I flooded her house.

Come to think of it, I may be using two MacGuffins, as another character arrives home about the same time because she's suddenly forced to sell her grandmother's house.

Very interesting...

Rue

PattiTheWicked · Jul 27, 2006

I've never heard this term before, actually. It sounds like the literary equivalent of a red herring.

Now that's fun to say. I wonder if anyone has ever named a character Red Herring.

Lyra Jean · Jul 27, 2006

PattiTheWicked said:
I've never heard this term before, actually. It sounds like the literary equivalent of a red herring.

Now that's fun to say. I wonder if anyone has ever named a character Red Herring.

In the cartoon "A Pup Named Scooby Doo" there is a character called Red Herring. Fred always thinks he is the one doing the crime and it does look like it but it's not him.

Nashelle · Jul 28, 2006

A MacGuffin is the thing the whole story balances on, that without it there would be no reason for the story at all.
I had a MacGuffin and didn't like it. In my story about aliens they were in search of a crystal - without the crystal there was no story. A story should be a sum of all its parts not just one. I had to scrap it in the end because the MacGuffin was giving me indigestion.

Joanna_S · Jul 28, 2006

Alfred Hitchcock coined the term MacGuffin. One of his more famous examples was the uranium in "Notorious". The characters are all focused on either discovering or protecting the secret of the uranium mine, but the real story is the love story between Devlin (Cary Grant) and Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman).

Tons of films have used MacGuffin's to good effect. The MacGuffin is not a useless or spurious thing and certainly isn't a red herring. Hitchcock used the term to describe something intrisic to the plot that appears to have great importance, but that doesn't have to be the item chosen. To use the Notorious example, it was uranium, but it could have been almost anything that would give the Nazi's an advantage. (Hitchcock was investigated by the US government for using uranium as his MacGuffin, because in 1947, when the film was made, uranium was still pretty secret stuff.) Did the Maltese Falcon have to be a statue? Did Janet Leigh have to run away because of stolen money?

MacGuffins work best with stories that have some suspense in them. My current novel uses a MacGuffin. It's romantic suspense and although the MacGuffin is very important to one of the main characters, he's in for a lot more than he bargained for in his quest.

And yes, I was a film major. Head is full of this stuff.

-- Joanna

Shadow_Ferret · Jul 28, 2006

Ordinary_Guy said:
For those that forgot, a "MacGuffin" is an empty goal, strictly a plot device meant to move the story along.

Personally, I can't stand 'em - but I can think of at least one great movie that used it: Ronin.

...How 'bout it folks? Is Mr. MacGuffin a literary powerhouse or a plot tool waiting to misfire?

Well, this is the first I've heard of it, but after looking at the wikipedia entry, it would appear some of the greatest films of all time, "North by Northwest," "The Maltese Falcon," "Casablanca," "Notorious" and so on all use this plot device.

So in my opinion, it's made for some pretty excellent entertainment. Therefore, it's all good.

aruna · Jan 9, 2008

Shadow_Ferret said:
Well, this is the first I've heard of it, but after looking at the wikipedia entry, it would appear some of the greatest films of all time, "North by Northwest," "The Maltese Falcon," "Casablanca," "Notorious" and so on all use this plot device.

So in my opinion, it's made for some pretty excellent entertainment. Therefore, it's all good.

Another great MacGuffin movie is Charade.

I looked up this word today because, having finished my first draft yesterday, I realized I have written a MacGuffin story...
It is really interesting how it happened. At first I thought the novel was all about the MacGuffin, but then around midway I found it was all about the characters, and a central drama that had nothing to do with the MacGuffin. I got really scared, because my yet-unsent query is all about the MacGuffin.

I felt I needed a way to connect the MacGuffin story with the real story, and thank God, I found a way.

MacGuffins are an excellent way to provide an interesting hook. I found it easy to write this query because, with the MacGuffin, I could come up with a quirky and intriguing premise, whereas the central drama is difficult to express in a way that will pique a jaded agent's interest.

After that, of course, everything has to work and convince, the MacGuffin story and the real story. If you add a MacGuffin just as an afterthought it will usually be contrived; it has to be authentic on its own terms.

Zoombie · Jan 9, 2008

My novel E.L.F has a MacGuffin, the data crystal of vital importance to the alien race, the Xorquin.

It stays important though...

maestrowork · Jan 10, 2008

Zoombie said:
My novel E.L.F has a MacGuffin, the data crystal of vital importance to the alien race, the Xorquin.

It stays important though...

If it's important to your main story, and it stays important, how is it a maguffin?

Devil Ledbetter · Jan 10, 2008

maestrowork said:
If it's important to your main story, and it stays important, how is it a maguffin?

It's not that a MacGuffin is unimportant to the story. It has an important role in the plot. But what "it" is could physically be something else without changing the plot.

Think horcruxes in Harry Potter.

maestrowork · Jan 10, 2008

Devil Ledbetter said:
It's not that a MacGuffin is unimportant to the story. It has an important role in the plot. But what "it" is could physically be something else without changing the plot.

Think horcruxes in Harry Potter.

Hmm, that's not what my understanding of what a MagGuffins is. The horcruxes are not MacGuffins (even though what they are physically doesn't matter -- the fact that they are horcruxes is).

Janet Leigh's stealing the cash in Psycho is a MacGuffin. Basically, Jenet Leigh could be running away for murder or kidnapping a child or sleeping with her boss's wife -- that part of the plot can be anything -- but it is not important to the actual story. The only purpose of that plot is to get her to the Bates Motel.

According to wikipedia:

A MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin) is a plot device that motivates the characters or advances the story, but has little or no actual relevance to the story.

What Aruna wrote does seem like a MacGuffin.

In my WIP, I can't decide if I have a MacGuffin or not yet. There's a mystery in the beginning that moves the plot along, and then you realize the main story has nothing to do with that mystery. But I am not sure if it actually is a MacGuffin. I'll have to wait until I'm finished with the whole thing to decide.

Devil Ledbetter · Jan 10, 2008

maestrowork said:
Hmm, that's not what my understanding of what a MagGuffins is. The horcurxes are not MacGuffins. Janet Leigh's stealing the cash in Psycho is.

According to wikipedia:

A MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin) is a plot device that motivates the characters or advances the story, but has little or no actual relevance to the story.

Well, admittedly I've not read the final HP book, so if the horcruxes turned out to be something else entirely, perhaps you're right. But in book six, the items that were horcruxes could have been anything (a ring vs. say, a beerbong) and it wouldnt' have made a bit of difference in the plot.

Edited to add, here is what Hitchcock, who coined the term MacGuffin, said about it:

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Hitchcock explained the term in a 1939 lecture at Columbia University: “[W]e have a name in the studio, and we call it the ‘MacGuffin.’ It is the mechanical element that usually crops up in any story. In crook stories it is always the necklace and in spy stories it is always the papers.”

So it seems to me it's more likely to be a physical element than a plot movement meant to fool the reader.

maestrowork · Jan 10, 2008

Could be a MacGuffin in book six, but by book seven we know they are important so they are not MacGuffins.

A good test of MacGuffin is if you take away that plot device, would the actual story still make sense. For example, if you just start with Janet Leigh arriving at the Bates Motel, the real story still makes sense. That makes her plot a MacGuffin. In a way, it's like a misdirection. We thought the story was about her stealing the cash and running away, but it turns out to be entirely something else.

Devil Ledbetter · Jan 10, 2008

Yeah, our understanding of the term is different. Since Hitchcock purportedly coined the term, and he referred to it as a mechanical element, I take that to mean a physical item (like a necklace or papers, to reiterate Hitchcock's example) where you are taking it to mean a plot device (Janet Leigh doing something).

aruna · Jan 10, 2008

maestrowork said:
Hmm, that's not what my understanding of what a MagGuffins is. The horcruxes are not MacGuffins (even though what they are physically doesn't matter -- the fact that they are horcruxes is).

Janet Leigh's stealing the cash in Psycho is a MacGuffin. Basically, Jenet Leigh could be running away for murder or kidnapping a child or sleeping with her boss's wife -- that part of the plot can be anything -- but it is not important to the actual story. The only purpose of that plot is to get her to the Bates Motel.

According to wikipedia:

A MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin) is a plot device that motivates the characters or advances the story, but has little or no actual relevance to the story.

What Aruna wrote does seem like a MacGuffin.

And after reading the first part of your mail I had decided mine wasn't a MacGuffin after all!!!

It's a precious postage stamp, that turns up in a struggling immigrant family, causing all kinds of ramifications, which propel me to back in time into the past of the characters, where I found a far more interesting story than the postage stamp story.

I thought it was a MacGuffin because the stamp could have been anything, a brooch, a ring, a photograph. But its existence does trigger a lot of the action in the main, present day action, send them all off to another country, and also ties up the conflict in the past.
So, is it a MacGuffin or not?

maestrowork · Jan 10, 2008

But even if it's a physical item, it still should have no relevance to the story. Yes? For example, in Atonement, the vase could have been anything -- a chair, a statue, a painting, but the fact that it's there, broken, and prompts the characters to do something is important. But does that make the item itself a MacGuffin, since what exactly it is doesn't necessarily matter?

I would say the vase in Atonement is a MacGuffin because the story ultimately has nothing to do with the vase/chair/statue/painting at all.

Yeah, I think we have a different understanding. In Psycho, the MacGuffin was actually both the item and the plot (and Hitchcock should know!) -- the suitcase full of money is the MacGuffin. But that whole plot is also a MacGuffin.

aruna · Jan 10, 2008

maestrowork said:
Could be a MacGuffin in book six, but by book seven we know they are important so they are not MacGuffins.

A good test of MacGuffin is if you take away that plot device, would the actual story still make sense. For example, if you just start with Janet Leigh arriving at the Bates Motel, the real story still makes sense. That makes her plot a MacGuffin. In a way, it's like a misdirection. We thought the story was about her stealing the cash and running away, but it turns out to be entirely something else.

Ray, you really are a pain! Now you have me all confused. OK, if you take away my stamp the main story would still stand as it is, but some of the present day story would indeed make no sense and I would have to reframe everything to get the characters to reveal the characteristics that make up the story: greed, jealousy, guilt etc.

maestrowork · Jan 10, 2008

aruna said:
I thought it was a MacGuffin because the stamp could have been anything, a brooch, a ring, a photograph. But its existence does trigger a lot of the action in the main, present day action, send them all off to another country, and also ties up the conflict in the past.
So, is it a MacGuffin or not?

I think it is. Some may call it a trigger -- your real story is about something else, but the stamp/ring/photograph/whatever is what moves the plot along, and your readers may think the stamp/ring is important but it turns out to be just a plot device -- the story is not about the stamp/ring at all. If once the real story begins, the stamp/ring doesn't even play a role anymore or the readers really don't care anymore, then I think it is a MacGuffin. That's why I said the horcruxes in Harry Potter aren't really MacGuffins because they are important in the plot (at least in Book 7).

I think the letters in The Pacific Between could be a MacGuffin as well -- it could have been a photograph, a signed note, a card, or a check, and the story really isn't about the letters. Then again, the letters are not just a throwaway (unlike Janet Leigh's suitcase of money -- which you didn't even care about once Norman Bates enters the story). So my gut feel is that the letters in my novel are NOT MacGuffins -- they do have relevance.

Egg MacGuffin (with cheese)

Industrial Strength

The mean one

Art is Resistance

Crypto-fascist

Fear the Death Ray

Lurker Extraordinaire

Chronic Lurker

Unleashing Hell.

Two years old now.

Court Jester

On a wing and a prayer

Dragon of the Multiverse

Fear the Death Ray

Come on you stranger, you legend,

Fear the Death Ray

Come on you stranger, you legend,

Fear the Death Ray

Come on you stranger, you legend,

On a wing and a prayer

Fear the Death Ray

On a wing and a prayer

Fear the Death Ray