[stylist] MacGuffin

Sat Apr 25 16:28:28 UTC 2015

 I am sorry for responding the way I had. I just woke up and had not yet
fed my patience. Lesson learrned and lesson shared; do not reply without
thinking of what you are saying as it cannot be taken back.
Back to my original query... There was a post about MacGuffin, a new
platform for readers and writers. It said it was like Twitter, but I have
never used Twitter and do not understand that either. Could someone please
explain this thing?
Thanks, and again, I apologize for my prompt reaction.
Eve

On Sat, Apr 25, 2015 at 7:20 AM, Pagan Tree <3rdeyeonly at gmail.com> wrote:

> MacGuffin is a technological format that was introduced a couple of emails
> ago via David Andrews. No I was not joking, but neither am I an idiot that
> could not understand a definition. I was questioning a writers/readers
> format that is something like Twitter. It is all explained in the email in
> question. I just do not understand it.
> Eve
>
> On Sat, Apr 25, 2015 at 7:15 AM, Cheryl Orgas & William Meeker <
> meekerorgas at ameritech.net> wrote:
>
>> Discussion of the pungent slang term “gobsmacked” notwithstanding, what
>> intrigues me more is the name of the MacGuffin foundation, cited in emails
>> I've since deleted.  Given the definition below, why name the foundation
>> “MacGuffin,” and what, if anything, does its name say about its purpose,
>> mission, and future?  Or is it just a clever use of a literary reference?
>>
>>
>> Bill Meeker
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Source:  Wikipedia; definition of MacGuffin
>>
>>
>> In fiction, a MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin or maguffin) is a plot device
>> in the form of some goal, desired object, or other motivator that the
>> protagonist pursues, often with little or no narrative explanation. The
>> specific nature of a MacGuffin is typically unimportant to the overall
>> plot. The most common type of MacGuffin is an object, place, or person;
>> other, more abstract types include money, victory, glory, survival, power,
>> love, or some unexplained driving force.
>> The MacGuffin technique is common in films, especially thrillers. Usually
>> the MacGuffin is the central focus of the film in the first act, and
>> thereafter declines in importance. It may re-appear at the climax of the
>> story, but sometimes is actually forgotten by the end of the story.
>> Multiple MacGuffins are sometimes derisively identified as plot coupons.
>>
>>
>> Objects that serve the plot function of MacGuffins have had long use in
>> storytelling. Such objects in stories continue through to the name-sake of
>> the 1941 film The Maltese Falcon and beyond. The name "MacGuffin" appears
>> to originate in 20th-century filmmaking, and was popularized by Alfred
>> Hitchcock in the 1930s, but the concept pre-dates the term. The World War
>> I–era actress Pearl White used weenie to identify whatever object (a roll
>> of film, a rare coin, expensive diamonds, etc.) impelled the heroes and
>> villains to pursue each other through the convoluted plots of The Perils of
>> Pauline and the other silent film serials in which she starred.[3]
>> Alfred Hitchcock[edit]
>> The director and producer Alfred Hitchcock popularized the term
>> "MacGuffin" (a plot device that motivates the characters and advances the
>> story) and the technique, with his 1935 film The 39 Steps, an early example
>> of the concept.[4][5] Hitchcock explained the term "MacGuffin" in a 1939
>> lecture at Columbia University:
>> It might be a Scottish name, taken from a story about two men on a train.
>> One man says, "What's that package up there in the baggage rack?" And the
>> other answers, "Oh, that's a MacGuffin". The first one asks, "What's a
>> MacGuffin?" "Well," the other man says, "it's an apparatus for trapping
>> lions in the Scottish Highlands." The first man says, "But there are no
>> lions in the Scottish Highlands," and the other one answers, "Well then,
>> that's no MacGuffin!" So you see that a MacGuffin is actually nothing at
>> all.
>> Interviewed in 1966 by François Truffaut, Hitchcock illustrated the term
>> "MacGuffin" with the same story.[6][7] He also related this anecdote in a
>> television interview for Richard Schickel's documentary The Men Who Made
>> the Movies, and in an interview with Dick Cavett. According to author Ken
>> Mogg, screenwriter Angus MacPhail, a friend of Hitchcock, may have
>> originally coined the term.[8]
>> George Lucas[edit]
>> On the commentary soundtrack to the 2004 DVD release of Star Wars, writer
>> and director George Lucas describes R2-D2 as "the main driving force of the
>> movie … what you say in the movie business is the MacGuffin … the object of
>> everybody's search".[9] In TV interviews, Hitchcock defined a MacGuffin as
>> the object around which the plot revolves, but as to what that object
>> specifically is, he declared, "the audience don't care".[10] Lucas, on the
>> other hand, believes that the MacGuffin should be powerful and that "the
>> audience should care about it almost as much as the duelling heroes and
>> villains on-screen".[11]
>>
>>
>> For filmmaker and drama writing theorist Yves Lavandier, in the strictly
>> Hitchcockian sense, a MacGuffin is a secret that motivates the
>> villains.[12] North by Northwest 's supposed MacGuffin is nothing that
>> motivates the protagonist; Roger Thornhill's objective is to extricate
>> himself from the predicament that the mistaken identity has created, and
>> what matters to Vandamm and the CIA is of little importance to Thornhill. A
>> similar lack of motivating power applies to the alleged MacGuffins of The
>> Lady Vanishes, The 39 Steps, and Foreign Correspondent. In a broader sense,
>> says Lavandier, a MacGuffin denotes any justification for the external
>> conflictual premises of a work.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Bridgit
>> Kuenning-Pollpeter via stylist
>> Sent: Saturday, April 25, 2015 2:35 AM
>> To: 'Pagan Tree'; 'Writers' Division Mailing List'
>> Subject: Re: [stylist] MacGuffin
>>
>> Are you serious? I'm just not sure if you're joking or not, seriously.
>> It's just a definition of the word gobsmacked and it's origins, which are
>> Anglo-Saxon. It means astonished, surprised, flabbergasted, astounded. It's
>> an adjective.
>>
>> Bridgit
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Pagan
>> Tree via stylist
>> Sent: Friday, April 24, 2015 9:44 PM
>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>> Subject: [stylist] MacGuffin
>>
>> Can anybody explain this in not so technological terms? I just really do
>> not get it.
>> Thanks, Eve
>> _______________________________________________
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