MacGuffin
Also known as McGuffin
A MacGuffin is the object everyone in the story is after, even though what it actually is barely matters.
Alfred Hitchcock made the term famous and was pretty blunt about it: the MacGuffin is the thing the characters care about and the audience doesn’t. The briefcase, the secret formula, the stolen plans, the magic stone. Its job is to get people moving and clashing with each other. Swap it for something else and the story barely changes.
It’s different from Chekhov’s gun. The gun on the wall is a promise that has to pay off later. A MacGuffin just gives the characters a reason to act, and when someone finally gets hold of it, it often does nothing at all. Sometimes nobody ever gets it.
It stops working when you stop believing the characters really want it. As long as the chase creates real tension between people, the object can stay vague forever. Once the chase is the only thing holding the plot together, readers start to notice there’s nothing inside.
MacGuffin: common questions
Who came up with the term MacGuffin?
Alfred Hitchcock made it popular. He credited the name to the screenwriter Angus MacPhail and used it for the thing the characters chase that the audience doesn’t need to care about.
What is the difference between a MacGuffin and a plot device?
A MacGuffin is one kind of plot device, specifically the thing being chased. “Plot device” is the wider term for anything used to move the story along.