Deus Ex MacGuffin

Everyone knows what a MacGuffin is, although we may not be familiar with the appellation. At its simplest, a MacGuffin is an item of vital importance and / or power, at least one facet of which is highly pertinent to the plot at hand. Subsequently the majority of a narrative can be focussed upon obtaining, destroying, or otherwise interacting with it, with the plot's climax usually centred on one of the above.

Unsurprisingly, the word "MacGuffin" is often seen in the company of phrases such as "deus ex machina", "pointless plot device" and "raging fiery cliche from the depths of the twelfth circle of Dante's Inferno". 

Similarly unsurprisingly, the world's best known MacGuffins come from the world of fantasy, which seems to be so littered with all-powerful spellbooks, orbs, swords, gems and staffs that it's a wonder anyone can take a step without tripping over one.

However, MacGuffins are not limited solely to such archetypal roles. And these are the ones you have to watch out for.

In order for a plot to be engaging, it needs stakes. In order for it to have stakes, there has to be some manner of imminent danger and / or conflict to create the neccessary tension and need for the narrative to take place. This isn't always as easy as it sounds, so it's hardly alarming that potent items are used - those super-secret defence plans, that vital piece of proof to prove the accused innocent or guilty, that one clue to last week's crossword that will enter you into the draw to win a thousand pounds and a return trip to Bali for two. 

That said, the problem with using items is that they are just that - items. Unless the characters can give the reader a reason more original than "we need to get this thing before Bad Things Happen", our investment in the story will be minimal. 

This is the real crux of the issue - and this is what needs to be addressed and resolved in order to avoid MacGuffin syndrome.

Some authors, also notably of the fantasy-writing ilk, circumnavigate the need for an item by placing the responsibility directly into the hands of one of the characters. These are the Ringbearers, the Chosen Ones, the Dragon Reborn-s . . . the walking, talking MacGuffin. Now, that isn't to say that this strategy is not a good one - the personal nature of the task will result in greater involvement by the character, and if the character is successfully engaging and interesting, greater involvement in the reader. However, just because the character is contractually obligated to Do The Thing That Must Be Done does not result in sufficient personal involvement in their own right. The character needs other motivations and interests and dynamics to work alongside this in order to avoid becoming an overglorified plot device. 

Another attempted avoidance strategy is to remove all mention of the MacGuffin from the story altogether, only introducing it in the closing stages as a revelatory plot twist. Again, this is not an entirely bogus way to go about it - we all love a good plot twist, and with sufficient foreshadowing and a logical, non-contrived explanation, it can actually work very well. Yet this is exactly where the difficulty lies. Making such a huge game-changer seem logical and clever rather than dumping it on the page to ring out the cry of "I have no idea what I'm doing here!" is difficult. The Deus Ex Machina is easily one of the most despised and contrived of plot occurences since some hapless villain decided to adopt a catchphrase and, without proper handling, that is exactly what your plot-twist MacGuffin can become.

Now now, I hear you cry, you can't go rubbishing these other strategies without giving one that does work, can you? Surely there must be some way around this problem?

There is. In fact, there are many. The problem is that I don't know what they are.

So, instead, here is my personal - emphasis on this word - way of navigating the tripwires of MacGuffin  Central.

Do not write a story centering on an item of great power or value. Write a story that has an item of great power or value in it.

Powerful items are flexible plot devices, interesting demonstrations of the setting, and have massive potential to interest and entertain. However, your characters should have a real reason to be doing what they are doing before you even think about using one of these. They can make wonderful additional motives, but your characters should be out to catch the madman who betrayed their company, slaughtered their families, ate their hamsters, and is now running off to give the Blue-Glowy Cube Of Indefinite Power to the megalomaniac with a god complex because he betrayed their company, slaughtered their family and ate their hamsters, not because they are after the MacGuffin for its own sake. The item is helpful in that it kicks the stakes up a few degrees, but there should be much better established motives and aims for the characters than hinging them all on an inanimate object.

What about you, my friends? Can you think of any particularly horrendous example of MacGuffin abuse that you would like to share? And are any of you more enlightened than me on MacGuffin Avoidance 101? Leave us a comment, and let us know!

~ Charley R

The Point of No Return

Sometimes, there comes a point when there's no going back.

The "point of no return" may be a hackneyed phrase in day to day conversation, but in terms of narrative its tradition is much older - and far, far darker. Forming an essential element of the tragedian archetype, such a moment in the narrative marks the point where the character's fate is sealed by some irredeemable action.

This action could be anything, but for the most part it is usually a very dramatic, and almost always irrevocable, deed performed by the character themself. This distinction is important: characters solely shaped by the actions and deeds of others tend to become passive bystanders to their own fate, and unless you're aiming to revive the helpless, clueless, and utterly feckless maidens of the early Gothic genre, this probably isn't the effect you want. Having the character do the deed themselves maximises the impact - both on character and reader.

Now stand back everyone; I'm about to demonstrate. With Shakespeare.

Macbeth, to be precise.

The moment the eponymous hero takes his first steps onto the stage, we know he's in for it. Accompanied by fellow commander, nobleman and best-friend Banquo, Macbeth hardly has time to deliver a line of ominous foreshadowing before he is set upon by three witches who promptly fill his ambitious brain with lies that will lead to a slow descent into regicide, insomnia, baby-killing, suicide, and decapitation - sometimes in combination.

However, even if your English teacher isn't pointing out every ominous word and telling you to keep an eye on it in preparation for Impending Doom, the audience is, at least, slightly prepared for several of the aforementioned evils.  The sense of inevitability created by the witches' predictions will probably tell any clued-in audience member - even if they're not familiar enough with Shakespeare to know that anyone with a moral bone in their body equates instantaneously to cannon fodder - that old king Duncan is toast. Unless Duncan dies, and Macbeth inherits the throne of Scotland (accompanied by a healthy side of insanity) via his murder, the play cannot progress. Add in the prevarocation of Lady Macbeth, more heavy foreshadowing, and Scottish nobility with the IQ of particularly dim-witted tree stumps, and all in all, the murder's much like it's victim - an overglorified plot point with an unfortunate amount of blood involved.

Not so with the next death - Macbeth's real "point of no return". Sleepless, paranoid, and spiritually bereft, the seeds of evil planted by Duncan's murder have begun to take effect. Or have they? We can't see inside his head, for all he soliloquises. Maybe he just needs time. Maybe he'll get over it.

Enter three murderers; long knives, short morals, and one prerogative.

Exit three murderers, with Banquo's body.

The scene of the murder is scarcely a page long, and the prelude is barely even twice that. Macbeth's explanatory monologue takes up near half of that, but he's one of those incredibly gifted characters who can talk a lot and say nothing at all. Take that next to the run-up to Duncan's murder - a full Act, with five scenes' buildup and another to deal with the aftershocks.

Macbeth kills Duncan for a reason.

Macbeth kills Banquo for none at all.

Banquo's death marks the final turning point in Macbeth because it shows us that Macbeth is doomed. Until now, his actions have had other motivations - be they from prophecy, provocation, or personal. This murder, though, is the product of only one thing: Macbeth. His paranoia over Banquo's part in the prophecy. His fear that his friend will betray him. His growing apathy to killing, and revelling in his power, which just makes it so much easier.

All his, though. His, and his alone.

He just killed his best friend in cold blood. And now there is no going back.

Macbeth isn't the only such character in Shakespeare - Richard III, king at last, and with his enemies' heads rolling off the block faster than bingo balls on the Saturday night lottery, turns on his cousinly co-conspirator Buckingham when he fails to make the jump between stitching up Council members to smothering children in their beds. Othello, driven to distraction by Iago's insinuations, orchestrates the murder of the wrongfully-accused Cassio, who's done nothing worse than try and apologise over a drunken mishap.

Why did Shakespeare make such heavy use of the point, and why have many modern writers followed suit? Yes, it's changed to some extent - the means, the motives, and the events themselves redacted through the years to fit the author's inent. But why is it still here?

Because it's heartbreaking. Any character can be confronted with the problem - protagonist to  antagonist, anti-hero to unlucky bystander - and its effect can always be made devastating. The author can exploit their most primal fears, can take them right to the brink and dangle them by the merest threads of hope that, maybe, they can turn away, can turn back. Can change.

And then the author cuts the threads, and laughs. Now, it is too late. The author knows it, the character knows it, and the reader knows it. No matter what happens next, the deed is done and cannot be undone.

They have found the point, and they have passed it. What happens next, be it fair, foul, or flabbergasting, all comes down to them, and what they did.

There is no going back.

~ Charley R