In Search of the MacGuffins

The MacGuffin is a phrase coined by director and producer Alfred Hitchcock in a lecture, saying "We 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 almost always the necklace and in spy stories it is most always the papers." The MacGuffin is the driving force of a plot, an object that may be trivial in power, but important to the story.

In the Indiana Jones movie "Raider of the Lost Ark" the Lost Ark is the MacGuffin. Indiana spends most of the movie racing Nazis to the Ark, and tring to stop them from unleashing it. But the Ark itself barely does anything, besides facemelting Nazis. Treasure hunting stories often have some sort of MacGuffin, in the form of an artifact.

MacGuffins are used in literature, too. The Harry Potter series is big on this, as the Sorcerer's Stone is classically MacGuffinal, and the Horcruxes in the seventh book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," are the MacGuffin literary technique at it's best. It's a quest to find seven objects, each important only in the fact that they are meant to be destroyed. Harry Potter is successful partly due to its masterful use of prominent literary techniques.

The MacGuffin even appears in texts as old as "Jason and the Argonauts," where Jason is questing for the Golden Fleece. The Golden Fleece itself does nothing, but the fact that Jason is searching for it is the start of all of his adventures.

The MacGuffin is a handy 'plot hook', and you can use it to propel your story with ease. Your adventurers are off to close five dimensional rifts, your spy is meant to capture the intelligence papers of an enemy government, your master thief is attempting to steal a huge diamond. It's not only an involving and classic technique, but a quick'n'easy technique as well; grab a few characters, throw in a MacGuffin and a plot hook and you're ready to go. The MacGuffin is a great technique for beginner and veteran writers.