How many times have you been in a conversation with fellow writers and they have spouted off some term that you had never heard of before? And how many times have those around you nodded their heads, like they've heard it all before, making you feel even worse for not knowing the term?
Well, this particular feeling happens to me all the time. And you know what: it doesn't make me any less of a writer for not knowing the terms. In fact, like today's literary term, most of those random words are insignificant, but today's term is doubly so.
A MacGuffin (also written McGuffin) is an object or goal sought by the characters of a story, keeping the plot moving forward, though the object itself lacks intrinsic importance.
A Scottish Name Claimed by a Film Great
MacGuffin is actually a Scottish name (though some sources say Irish), but in the 1930s, it become a literary term to describe the object that characters within a story (particularly with film) cared about, but the audience did not. The term was coined by the English screenwriter Angus MacPhail, but popularized by Alfred Hitchcock, and for some reason, it's a term that has just stuck.
I, myself, first came across the term while listening to an episode from one of my favorite podcasts about writing (Writing Excuses). It was being bandied about from host to host with no explanation as to what the term meant. By the time I was at my computer, I had completely forgotten what the term was that I had never heard before, and life carried on.
Then I was reading a book on developmental editing (one that demonstrated its methodology by way of thrillers) and I came across the term again. It was one of the essential components to a thriller: there had to be a MacGuffin. That's when I finally learnt what it meant, but I discovered that it was an insignificant term, because I was already instinctively doing it.
To put it blunt (and make it more specific): a MacGuffin is that one object or goal that the villain (antagonist) desires, but it's the job of the hero (protagonist) to stop the villain from getting it. And who cares what the object is? Certainly not the audience, because that's not why we're captivated by the story. The MacGuffin, whatever it is, is the source of motivation for the antagonist, driving the story forward, but as the reader (or the film audience), we're more interested in the interactions and interplay between the antagonist and the protagonist. The briefcase of disaster can shift from person to person, but what is actually inside it is not why we keep reading. It anything, we cheer and laugh when the contents of that briefcase turn out to be nothing but lemons.
A MacGuffin of Suspense
Every thriller or suspense story NEEDS a MacGuffin as part of the story. The good guys need to thwart the bad guys plans to get the MacGuffin at ever turn. There needs to be a moment when it looks like the bad guy will succeed in obtaining the MacGuffin, only to be thwarted again.
As I'm writing this, those scenes from the movie Fifth Element are playing in my head when the opera diva is rocking it out and the bad guys are shooting up the place, gaining the coveted briefcase. However, when Jean-Bastiste Emanuel Zorg opens the briefcase to see what everything was all about, it's empty. This is a perfect example of how the MacGuffin plays a role in driving the story forward.
The MacGuffin helps to create tension, and can be the cause of some awesome explosive scenes. Exactly what that MacGuffin is doesn't matter. It could be a physical object or a state of being, or just world domination. Whatever it is, it's the fact that it exists that matters.
The concept of the MacGuffin is a simple idea, yet, we'll need to blame Hitchcock for the odd term.
Don't panic if you didn't know this term until now. It is instinct for writers to include an object of desire within their stories. I have yet to read a story that didn't have a MacGuffin of some description. Even if you didn't know what the literary device was called before, you do now. And when someone wants to show off their literary knowledge, you can now participate in that discussion without feeling awkward or embarrassed for not knowing what they're talking about: the insignificant object that is just as insignificant as the term, but is pivotal to everything.