Don't spend too much time with the MacGuffin

A MacGuffin, to get that out of the way, is an object which is the focus of everyone’s actions in a story without actually being of much interest to the audience. I could actually leave it at that and end the post here, but that wouldn’t be very helpful, now, would it? Instead, let’s have a closer look at how to handle a MacGuffin.

The MacGuffin is a story device which helps you to start the action. It’s an object which all fractions (usually ‘Good’ and ‘Evil,’ but more is possible) are after and want or need to possess for their own reasons. MacGuffin devices are often found in espionage or heist stories, where the action centres around a piece of technology or an expensive doodad. However, while everyone in the story wants this object, the audience usually cares little for it. They want the action it creates. And that is where the title of this post comes in. Don’t over-think your MacGuffin, don’t spend ages creating it. It will not be worth it in the end. Spend your time with the characters and the story instead, that’s more important.

Espionage action often anchors on a piece of information or technology. That microfilm, that document, that death ray - they’re coveted by all, but they usually don’t do that much in the story. They exist and that makes the heroes and the villains clash. One wants the MacGuffin, one protects it. Or one has stolen it and the other one wants it back. Complex plots can be woven around something as simple as a photograph of a blackboard. The photograph isn’t doing anything, it’s just there and everyone wants it. And so the hero and the villain fight, trying to outsmart each other, each of them set on the ultimate price of that photograph.

Heist action usually centres on a valuable. It can be a piece of art or a piece of jewellery. A lot of money is also an acceptable reason for doing a big heist with lots of specialists, but art and jewellery are a little more likely. And apart from learning to work together and developing the complex plan which involves a certain number of specialists, the heist also has its setbacks and its dangers which spice the story up. There’s less of a direct confrontation, since heists rely on outsmarting the enemy (usually the owner of the coveted piece and their security), but it’s still a fight of sorts.

“One for Sorrow” (out in August, more RL trouble notwithstanding) has the Dresden Collier as its MacGuffin. It was instrumental in the lasting injury of Thomas Crowe, has almost led to the death of his adoptive daughter Inez, and is the piece which they finally target to take their revenge in the way only a jewel thief would take it - by ‘liberating’ the whole illegal collection from its owner and giving all pieces back, including the collier. Yet, the collier isn’t even there when Inez gets injured, not really. It’s just the piece which represents all of those things and thus is the target. The story isn’t about the collier - I never mention its past, for instance, apart from it being the target of Tom’s last coup. The story is about Tom and Inez working together with a lot of acquaintances to teach the owner of the collier (and former partner of Tom) a lesson which is long overdue. About them leaving their comfort zone and doing what they know is right, even though it’s not easy and will not bring in a lot of money.

Sometimes, you can make the audience care about the MacGuffin, though. If the MacGuffin (or its carrier) has a personality which people enjoy. One example of this is R2D2 in “A New Hope” (originally only known as “Star Wars”). Despite looking like a garbage can on wheels, R2 gives the impression of having a personality and a character from the very beginning. Even though we only understand one side of his bickering with his colleague 3PO, it’s clear from what we can understand that they are arguing and that R2 is not above actually insulting the other droid. He’s feisty and knows what he wants. So we as the audience care about him when he gets captured and sold and tricks Luke into setting him free so he can follow his last order.

The characters care not about R2, but about the Death Star Plans in his memory, but the audience likes the little droid and cares about his fate. It’s a testament to George Lucas’ abilities as a director that the audience worries about what is, in-universe, a collection of already outdated technology (there are droids of his type which a much higher production number). And because they care about him, they also care about him not falling into the hands of the evil empire.

However, in most cases it’s not necessary to make the audience worry for the MacGuffin. They should worry and wonder about the characters and what they do, not about an object which might or might not hold the key to the destruction of world as we know it (or just be very, very expensive). Because of this, it’s not necessary to spend too much time with the MacGuffin, neither in the story nor while preparing it. Tell the audience it exists and is important for a lot of people, then just let the story about several fractions fighting for it begin and that’s that. In the end, of course, the heroes will have the MacGuffin, but it will look dire at some point. There will be twists and turns, as with every story. The MacGuffin is just a device, nothing half as important as the characters will make it seem.

Don’t get too worked up about your MacGuffin. Give it what it needs to start the story and just put it aside afterwards. The actions of your characters will carry the story from the beginning to the end, not the MacGuffin.

Strange Practice Review

Dr. Greta Helsing (the family apparently dropped the ‘van’ when they immigrated to England in the 1930s) has a very specialized practice in Harley Street, London. It’s far more specialized than any other practices at that very prestigious address. Because Greta, like her father before her, has specialized in treating those who are usually described as ‘monsters:’ vampires, were-creatures, banshees, mummies, and so on.

The novel “Strange Practice” by Vivien Shaw starts with Greta on her way to a house call in her very old mini. It’s early in the morning, but for Greta, those are normal work hours, since not all of her patients keep to regular office hours. Edmund Ruthven (who is, technically, a mere earl and not a lord) has asked her to come and see him. And he’s neither the only literary figure we meet in the book, nor the only one we meet in the first chapter, because a certain Sir Francis Varney has come to him with severe injuries, putting two very different vampires in Greta’s vicinity right away. Ruthven still is annoyed at Polidori’s naming the novel ‘The Vampyre,’ because there’s two types of vampires and he’s not a vampyre, unlike Varney. Ruthven is a draculine (meaning the same type of vampire as Dracula), while Varney is a lunar sensitive, which makes his life even harder (because he really can only drink the blood of virgins, unlike other vampires). The first chapter also assures us readers that Greta is one hundred percent normal, a human with no supernatural abilities whatsoever. She just happens to know that the supernatural does exist and she has taken on the family business of caring for supernatural beings in need of a doctor.

The novel’s plot quickly picks up speed, there is a hidden danger, a group of men in monk’s clothing who kill those they think are wicked and need to be killed for it (human and monster alike). They attacked Varney with a blade dipped in a very potent poison and Greta first of all has a hard time getting it to heal - which should be an easy feat for a vampire under normal circumstance. The novel then allows for us to follow the story through several different viewpoints. All main characters (only two of whom are human) get their part of it to tell, but Greta is the main viewpoint character for the story.

The plot is well-told, the pacing makes the novel a joy to read, and it really pulled me through in almost one go (had I not started it very late in the evening, I might have been tempted to just read on and on and on). The only thing I would have done differently is to leave out the short viewpoint of the antagonist - it’s not really necessary, as the motivation is explained by another character later on, and the novel already has a lot of different viewpoints. But that is complaining on a very high level, so no reason to avoid the novel as a such.

The way Vivien Shaw handles the characters is, however, the best part of the book for me. The ‘monsters’ (two vampires, a demon, a ghoul chieftain and some of his tribe) come across as surprisingly human, while at the same time it’s never denied that they are not human and do not act or think completely human. Ruthven and Varney do feed - on bought blood, if possible, on humans, if not. They avoid killing, both because they are vampires with a soul (but way better done than most of those) and because it’s not necessary for them, since they can’t drink more than about a pint of blood in one go, anyway (an amount a human can spare without dying - it’s about the amount you lose when donating). The demon is quite world-weary, an exiled from Hell who sometimes takes much less care with his body than he should, but at the same time also a fatherly friend to Greta. The ghoul chieftain is Greta’s patient for anxiety and slight depression she treats with medicine (although he and his clan have a bigger role to play than just that) - a result of trying to keep his tribe alive in a world which offers less and less hiding places for the subterranean carrion-eaters. Yet, eating corpses (even those of their own kind, because it’s a ritual for them), is perfectly normal for him and Greta doesn’t expect anything else. Mummies, as we learn from a short scene at her clinic, have a tendency to lose bones to entropy and need new ones (which Greta carves for them before implanting - she wants a 3D printer, so she can do better ones).

The most important character, however, is Greta herself. She is a strong woman without being a badass fighter or suchlike. Greta doesn’t use weapons (above a pepper spray in the only scene with her which could qualify as a fight scene), she can’t kill someone with a spoon, and she is not ‘strong’ in a physical way, either. She is a doctor and that is where her strength as a character lies. She cares, not only for humans, which is easy. She cares for the ‘monsters’ she treats. For making their lives better, for offering them better treatments. She cares more for having more money to renovate and expand her clinic than for getting a new car (despite the age and overall condition of her mini), buying new clothes (despite mostly wearing hand-me-downs), or moving into a better flat. She cares for everyone whom she meets who needs help - even for the monk who almost killed her. One could say that Greta is a perfect example of creating a character who embodies the feminine principles. She is a caregiver and a healer, not a warrior or a killer. Her utter conviction that everyone deserves her help is what makes her so strong. She doesn’t walk away from a patient. She doesn’t turn her back on someone who is not, by any definition of the word, human. She walks into danger, not to challenge it, but to help and protect those who need it. She is an embodiment of the Hippocratic Oath.

If you want a story filled with horror creatures who are less monstrous than the humans hunting them, if you are looking for a female lead who is strong without being a fighter, if you want to spend some very amusing hours with a good book, I can only recommend “Strange Practice” to you.

Casting Against Expectations

Even before opening a book or before the beginning of a movie, we tend to have expectations for the lead - the hero, the protagonist, whatever word you wish to use. And in most cases, we are right. Because the authors, casting specialists, and movie directors also know what kind of hero we expect, they give us exactly what we think we want. But do we really want it?

Philosophically, they say that you are unfortunate to get what you want and in many ways that is true. Because once you have what you want, there’s no more dream to follow or ambition to work towards. And, sometimes, not getting what you want can be much more interesting and entertaining than getting exactly what you want. Because we not only know how the hero should look and act. We also know how the story will run with (usually) him at the helm. We know how an action movie will play out. We know how a romance story runs with its twists and turns not to make things too easy for the here usually female lead.

What happens, though, if we make the twist at the beginning? If we don’t choose the regular hero for whatever genre a story is set in? What if we play with that expectation and go in a different direction? A woman in the lead of an action story might not be quite as testosterone-driven as a man, but can’t she be a good lead, too? Her fighting might be different, but her situation doesn’t have to be less desperate.

Instead, we very dearly hang on to gender roles - we don’t even consider that a woman might star in an action movie or that a man might star in a romance. But why? Erotic novels with two men (and no woman) do very well with the female audience (also, presumably, with some men inclined that way). Why shouldn’t female characters also do well with a male audience? Not all moviegoers who went to see “Wonder Woman” were women, I’m sure.

Horror movies have the specific ‘slasher’ category, where the lead is usually the ‘final girl.’ The young woman who is virtuous, but nevertheless forced to go through hell to come out strong enough to face off the killer in the end. Compared to your usual horror movie, where women are more likely to be the victims than the final survivors and heroes, the slasher genre is unusual. In the first ‘real’ slasher movie, “Halloween” (although one could argue that, despite not featuring the female lead facing off Leatherface in the end, “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” was first), we have that twist for the first time. It’s not a man who faces off against the deadly killer. It’s not one of the boys. It’s a girl - the ‘virtuous’ girl, because horror movies are deeply moralistic. Carpenter turned things around. So did Joss Whedon ages later, when he conceived Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The blond cheerleader, who usually is among the first victims in every horror movie set in a high school setting, suddenly became the badass fighter killing the vampires. Buffy is not successful because she’s the virtuous girl. She’s a ‘chosen one’ - a trope which feels a little overused nowadays. Buffy is fated to be the Slayer and to fight vampires until she dies - only, Buffy refuses to stay dead, so tough luck for the vampire populace of L.A. and later on Sunnydale.

Espionage movies do feature female leads sometimes (please, please, please, let the slightly announce Black Widow standalone be good!), but they often have a huge problem in that case: sexualisation. The movies almost all play the female agent as the femme fatale type - she does her job by seducing, by using her body to gain information or entry. And while this is more realistically done by a woman, because few places and pieces of information are guarded by women, where a man would do better, it is also a very sexist trope - because the women don’t get to do other things. It’s rare to see a female agent simply doing stuff the way a male one would do it (my own agent Jane Browne notwithstanding, of course). Also, there’s often the rather dangerous trope of systemic abuse used to ‘train’ the female agents for their job, something you find especially strong in the background of Black Widow (the Red Room program) or the recent “Red Sparrow” flick. The problem is that, unlike the male agents who do it for patriotism (or, perhaps, money), the women have been broken and recreated to turn them into those human Venus flytraps. They are not shown as people who wanted to become agents and went through the training for this (Roxy from “Kingsman” is different, but not the lead, merely a side character). They were taken, often as children or under pressure, their will was broken, their morals erased, and they were turned into breathing weapons and tools for their superiors (who usually are men). Again, Jane is different there, as are her female colleagues (this advertising is brought to you by me).

Fantasy settings (and sci-fi to a degree) should, one might think, be easiest to fill with a lot of different heroes. We’re talking about places full of magic (or with technology so advanced it could just as well be magic) where everything is possible. But even there, most creators show us male heroes (usually both straight and white) who have male sidekicks and women mostly feature as princesses to rescue or as some kind of side character who is either destined to die for the hero’s motivation (hint: no matter the genre, just DON’T DO IT!) or just generally be around without any deeper reason. In the best case, especially in sci-fi, they’re some sort of neutral technician or magician, physically female, but never seen as a woman by the hero.

There are a lot of ways to cast against expectations. To give the reader or viewer a different hero to follow. When John Carpenter decided to have a woman face off against his killer in “Halloween,” he took a risk and created a new sub-genre. There is no reason why you shouldn’t put an unlikely character in the shoes of the hero. Just make sure they still have the necessary ability and drive for the problem you’ll have them face. But that is something you always need to keep an eye on.

A Personal Example of Life Intervening

I’ve been fighting with a post about why the release of “John Stanton - Agent of the Crown” (in release at Amazon and others as I write this) has been delayed. The reasons for this were very personal and I wasn’t sure whether I should post them, but now I want to do it. My grief has subsided somewhat and it is such a perfect example of how real life can intervene with your work and plans.

In the middle of March, I thought I’d have more spare time for writing and wouldn’t be as hurried about editing and releasing again as I’d been with “Death Dealer” in February (when a severe cold conspired against me and I basically managed to finish editing on the last possible date). I’d been playing driver for my parents a lot in February and March so far, but things were easing up and I was looking forward to getting into the third Black Knight Agency novel or writing that Fantomas novel I’d plotted already (as far as I do plotting at all).

Everything seemed fine on the Wednesday on which I drove my mum to a specialist in Durlach. She was in a good mood and was in relatively good health (she’s not been as fit as before after her surgery where they removed half her lung because of cancer). She mentioned she might have caught the same cold which had first put me and then my dad down, but up to Sunday of that week, everything still seemed fine. She was a little under the weather, but the same had surely been true for my dad and me - and her breathing was still rather fine as well.

On Monday afternoon, she was admitted to hospital - and to the intensive care unit, too. Still, my dad and I thought she’d caught another bout of pneumonia (she’d had several since the surgery, but recovered of each) and she would be fine again in a few days or a week. During the night from Monday to Tuesday, they had to revive her twice and that was when the drama took up speed. After she’d been revived, they put her in an artificial coma (planned for about three days), because her lungs were full of pus. They removed the pus and everything looked cautiously optimistic. Needless to say, though, I didn’t get to do any writing, what with driving around daily and what with the worries.

End of the week, she was transferred to another hospital closer to home, but not because of that. After being revived, her kidneys hadn’t started working again (which can happen, it can even take several weeks for them to restart) and she needed dialysis. Because of her overall constitution, they didn’t want to do the regular variety (which takes about 5 hours, but also takes quite a strain on the body) and the other hospital had a machine for a constant, 24-hour dialysis. So mum was transferred - and she had to be revived again on the way, something we only learned about much later.

Mum didn’t really recover, her body bloating more and more from the water which wasn’t removed by the kidneys. The bladder wasn’t working, because it didn’t get any fluid to work with. Dialysis didn’t do as much good as we’d all hoped. Yet, for about a week, we held on to the hope that the kidneys would start working again and everything would get better. So what, if they’d never return to full work? Mum could go to a regular dialysis - much younger people sometimes are forced to do so for a long time. We were sure everything would get better at some point.

Until the Saturday a little over a week after she’d been transferred. Her heart was getting problematic, they’d had to revive her again. Mum was dying. On Sunday, Easter Sunday and 1st of April, to be more precise, we had to make the hard decision to let her go. Mum had never wanted to live only by machines and that was what it was coming to. She still fought death for well over seven hours after they’d taken her off all machines and only left her with a simple breathing mask. She was on morphine, so she wouldn’t feel the hard breathing too much, but that was all. Around half past nine in the evening, we got the call that she had gone - around two, she’d been taken off the machines and we’d been in the hospital with her for ages, hoping to guard her until she had passed. Perhaps she would have fought less, had she not felt us nearby.

But problems didn’t end there. It was the beginning of April, so no reason for me not to do my job in May, right? Wrong. Dad became my new focus. My parents had lived in their 120 m² flat for 54 years. It was too big for him alone. It was too full of memories. It was on the third floor (fourth for you Americans). And my mastermind personality came out to play, as it is wont to in situations like this one. I remembered the noises in the stairwell during the two days before. Two floors above me, the tenants of one flat had moved out during the long Easter weekend. The place wasn’t fit for my dad, though, he needed something on the ground floor. So should I try to scare away my next-door neighbours? No, that would take too long. Instead, I started to realize there still was a solution: I could move upstairs and my dad could have my flat - ground floor, two big rooms, big kitchen, nice bathroom, separate toilet. An ideal place for one person, as I’d already known for the fourteen years I’d lived in the flat. I talked to him about that when we picked up the few personal effects my mum had had with her. He was hopeful it might work.

The next day, Tuesday, I called my landlord, playing several cards to twist things my way: my mum’s death, my own long time in the house, the fact that he knew my dad, too. It worked out. On Wednesday, we had a chance to see the flat and I fell in love with the room at the end of the hallway. And the landlord told us that we had until Friday to consider everything and that he would prefer us to someone he’d not known before. On Friday, I called him, telling him I’d take the flat upstairs and my dad would take my flat - once the floor was exchanged (wall-to-wall carpet in the hallway and the normal rooms which had been in it longer than I’d lived there). We came to an agreement.

I had until the end of the month to organize my own move, so the floor could be done and my dad could move in, too. I had no time to write or consider doing anything else. I needed to find a company to move my furniture. I needed to organize the move of my internet and landline connection. I needed to do a hundred different things with my dad to get my mum settled in her new urn space. I’m still not completely sure how I managed everything, but on the 26th, I officially moved upstairs (meaning my furniture did, other stuff had done before or would after that day). About a month later, my dad moved into my old place, a little hurried, but he’s still much happier there.

I was without internet for three weeks, due to some screw-ups I had no control over. I’m still without a couch (we got the same one, my dad and I, but there’s been difficulties with the delivery, so it might take another month). I still have to put a few things up. But on the whole, I’m in my new flat and my dad is in his.

Other things have changed long-term. My dad is coming upstairs every day around two for a cup of tea and some time together with me. He’s not been on his own for 54 years now (that’s the time my parents were married, they were together for 56 years). He’s not quite as introverted as I am, either. Currently, he’s also coming upstairs to watch TV with me in the evening (when having the couch would be really nice), but he’ll be staying in his flat in the evening when he’s got his own internet back, weekends and holidays notwithstanding. I finally have my car next to the house, we’ll sell the old flat, which belongs to us and wasn’t rented. Last Saturday, they removed the rest of the stuff, now it’s empty.

Since I’m a night owl, I don’t mind my dad being around for two hours in the afternoon. I rarely start writing for real before four or five in the afternoon, so having my dad around before that time isn’t hurting my work. But I usually write in the evening and that doesn’t work out too well with my dad being around for about two hours then as well. It was unreasonably hot for the season recently, too, and I didn’t get to work on the editing as constantly as I would have liked to. Now I’m done, however, and the release process is running.

I will take a few days to rest and reset, then I will start writing again. Let this be a cautionary tale, though. Life has a way of crossing all your plans in the most horrible ways.