Earl Newton.com
Previous Post: Be An Original   Next Post: The Danger of a Single Story

Creativity 101, Notable Links: December 1, 2009 : 9:00 am

The MacGuffin Exposed

In crook stories it is almost always the necklace and in spy stories it is most always the papers.
- Alfred Hitchcock -

If you’ve ever taken a film class, you know what the MacGuffin is.

(I actually got into an argument once with a teacher who insisted the MacGuffin was the most important element in a film.  While it’s important to the characters, it is almost irrelevant to the actual film, or to the audience’s experience.)

TVTropes.com has a great wiki set up about the MacGuffin and the sub-groups they’ve discovered.  It’s a fun read, especially for avid story theorists.

TVTropes.com -> The MacGuffin

(discovered this link courtesy of the lovely archives at JohnAugust.com)

http://earlnewton.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/digg_48.png http://earlnewton.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/reddit_48.png http://earlnewton.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/stumbleupon_48.png http://earlnewton.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/delicious_48.png http://earlnewton.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/technorati_48.png http://earlnewton.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/google_48.png http://earlnewton.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/myspace_48.png http://earlnewton.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/facebook_48.png http://earlnewton.com/wp-content/plugins/sociofluid/images/twitter_48.png

Related posts:

  1. John August: Breaking Storytelling Conventions

  2. Running a Television Show

Posted 3 months, 1 week ago at 9:00 am.

1 comment

tags: 

 


One Reply

  1. Grant Dec 2nd 2009

    You really should post a warning when linking to TVTropes. Clicking on that single link will result in hours of your time disappearing… ;-)


Leave a Reply