Find Your Writing Buddy

[A friend can pull you along-source]

 I've been blogging about how to write in a more literary fashion.  It doesn't matter what kind of writing you're doing.  You will want someone to help at most if not at every step.  Some masters of the craft can just sit and write exactly the words they want with no one to help.  But those are few and far between.  Most people, even the best of writers, will need help to brainstorm, to edit, to beta read, to help you motivate yourself, etc.  Few people can write without some help.

[Writer's block-source]

I don't know about you, but I run into a lot of writer's block.  When it was just me trying to push forward, just me and that blank page, I was getting nowhere, and what I did produce was dull. I spent a lot of money trying to find different methods to push through that wall.  Now, I have a writing buddy.  If I run into a block, we talk it through.  He knows the story as well as I do if not better, so the ideas fly back and forth.  Writer's block doesn't last long with the creative juices flowing like that.  

[goals-source]

Furthermore, a writing buddy can help you keep on target with your goals.  If you're accountable to someone, you're more likely to stay on target.  It's like any exercise.  If you're only responsible to yourself, it's easy to break promises, forget goals, and walk away.  Having someone there to help you move forward will keep you on track, especially if you're both doing that for each other. 

[Beta reader-source]

Lastly, a writing buddy can help with beta reading. If you're reading your story with someone or having someone read afterward, they can tell you what you forgot or somehow missed.  It's easy to get confused and lose details.  It's also easy for a character, plot point, setting, etc to sound clear and beautiful in your head.  It takes someone outside your head to tell you that your character is a jerk, your setting is absent, and your character's sidekick has changed eye color three times.  

[Writing buddies-source]

Your writing buddy can be a friend, a family member, a writer's group, strangers in an online forum, or anyone else willing to help you push yourself forward, willing to help you brainstorm, basically, willing to help you be the best writer you can be.  You can even have a different writing buddy for each part of this.  Who is/are your writing buddy or buddies?  If you don't have one, where can you find one? 

Driving Stories with MacGuffins

[Running with the MacGuffin-source]

I've been blogging about ways to write in a more meaningful or literary fashion.   This post is more about driving any kind of story, but with a particular emphasis on how this method can be made more meaningful.  One of the most popular ways two drive a story is through a race to acquire that one mighty thing that may save or destroy the world, the awe-inspiring MacGuffin.  MacGuffins can have greater merit than just as a plot device.  

[Woohoo!  Save the McGuffin! Source]

According to TVTropes.com, MacGuffins are "a mysterious package/artifact/superweapon that everyone in the story is chasing." Even if you've never heard of MacGuffins, you've seen them.  They're a staple of Hollywood. Indiana Jones is always racing Nazis/Indigenous peoples/nameless cronies for some kind of archeological MacGuffin.  It's the briefcase full of money the crazy cast of "Rat Race" or the Rat Pack (in the older "Ocean's 11") won't be spending.  Whatever it is doesn't have to be special to the reader/watcher as long as it matters to the characters.  It's the Thing, that all-mighty Thing you can use as the carrot on the string to drive the story (and characters) forward. 

[The Stones-source]

Sometimes, the definition is a little more questionable.  The Avengers race Thanos for the Infinity Stones in the "Cherry Orchard"/Cassandra plotline of "Infinity War," wherein they see bad things coming but can't prevent them.  There are moments when the stones exceed the interchangeable, faceless role of the MacGuffin, but much of the time, they play that role.  When Dr. Strange or Loki or Thanos calls on the specific powers of one of the stones, they become more than a MacGuffin. When the characters are just chasing them around, only to lose them anyway, they become MacGuffins.  In the recent series Loki, their MacGuffin-ness becomes more clear (no spoilers). 

[The Deathly Hallows-source]

You can look at TVTropes and other sources for countless variants and examples in books, games, and literature of things that everyone seeks, but which turn out to be mostly useless except in its role to drive the story.  They appear throughout literature in books like the Percy Jackson series (Zeus's lightning bolt), Series of Unfortunate Events (the Baudelaire fortune), Harry Potter (many of the Horcruxes and Deathly Hallows), the ring, itself, in Lord of the Rings, and so many more. Their appearances are often central to these stories. 

[The One Ring-source]

People trivialize MacGuffins, but many books with deeper literary merit also center on MacGuffins. A MacGuffin is something about which the characters care about, which keeps the reader/audience invested in the character and plot, whether the item, itself, means anything in the grand scheme of things.  It can still be a symbol, something that means something beyond money or a ring or a gem.  It keeps the reader interested and entertained, but if you want your piece to have greater meaning than face value, greater than a run-of-the-mill genre piece, it's up to you as the writer to instill that meaning.  They can be made to be symbols of darkness, light, love, or anything else.  The ring represents addiction, for instance, which becomes clear as the reader watches the characters' obsession with it.  The Baudelaire fortune could represent the family they've lost.  The Horcruxes represent the darkness and division in the soul that occurs when one pursues actions that harm others.  

It's up to you as a writer if you decide to use a MacGuffin to drive your story to figure out how to make it more than an empty thing.  How can you do it?