Old plotting devices never grow old. They may morph or adorn new frocks, but underneath the plotting device is a chestnut. Okay, that’s a clique. But those never disappear either, do they?

 Last evening, while watching a PBS show entitled “New Tricks,” a police drama about three “supposedly” retired British male Bobbies, led by a female superintendent, who investigate, and yes, solve cold open cases, a young researcher enters the squad room. I apologize if I use a US police drama term, but hopefully all get my meaning.

This young female university researcher is on a project to study “OMW.” That is, older, male workers. The male New Tricks detectives do, without a doubt, meet these simple qualifications. Thus, the viewer can assume he or she has recognized the show’s plot.

 But, hold on.

The female researcher asks, with sincere humility, if this police unit can assist with finding the hit-and-run driver who struck down her brother, a bicycle courier. One does not have to throw away human nature to know that the “New Tricks” unit will offer to investigate.

And, the main story plot begins: Bicycle couriers who transport illegally imported diamonds.

The researcher’s brother is found not to have been struck accidentally on a city street, but purposely. And, without divulging all the story lines, justice prevails.

That brings us back to our original MacGuffin topic. What did the researcher’s two-minute study explanation have to do with fifty minutes of a one hour story? Nothing really, except to get the plot started.

That is the true value of a MacGuffin. Alfred Hitchcock often used the device originated by Angus MacPhail. Remember Hitchcock’s famous move, Psycho. Of course you do, if for nothing other than a nude woman in a blood-flowing shower scene. But what was the woman doing before the showerhead predominated the big screen? Evading a theft? Did this this have anything to do with Howard Bates?

Coincidently, but not directly, except to rivet the viewer’s attention as to what might occur next.

If you devise a MacGuffin (sometimes referred to as McGuffin), remember you need to tie up loose ends.

In the “New Tricks” show example that began this discussion, the last scene ends with the unit superintendent saying she received a call from the university and that they decided that the study would be of no benefit because the subject (i.e., the three older males in her unit) were an “abnormal subject.”

This is not as bizarre as it seems for the initial concept of the British open case squad is that it is populated by “misfits.” Thus, what seems odd at first, is explained in the end, in spite of the opening MacGuffin.

On your next writing, when devising the plot, think if a MacGuffin might work to reel in your reader when the plain facts of the opening narrative need a little pizzaz.

Ps, if you believe Author Donan Berg exposes these writer tricks, wouldn't you also think he might use the same in his novels. Don't guess, check out his novels at www.authorsden.com. We all gain, To be better readers we are lightyears ahead if we understand a writer's devices. The intrigue underlying the story will increase many fold. But don't be complacent. Be alert, the author may trick you. Sorry.