I’ve been working on a post about myths which isn’t quite ready yet, so it’s given me a nudge to get this post finished earlier than planned. It draws on a Greek myth as the underpinning for a modest theory of my own about how the relationship between maker and audience works. Note that I’m using the word maker here, not just writer — I’m pretty confident that the theory can be applied to all sorts of creative pursuits. I didn’t use the word “pursuits” as a subtle pun to foreshadow what’s coming, but I almost wish I had, now.
Here’s the myth bit. I’ll keep it brief. It’s the story of Hippomenes and Atalanta.
Atalanta was a virgin huntress; hardly anyone seems to know that she was the only female Argonaut who went with Jason on his quest to retrieve the Golden Fleece. But anyway, I digress. Atalanta had been told by an oracle that marriage would be her undoing, so she vowed that she would only marry a man who could beat her in a running race. As she was an exceptional runner, she figured she had nothing to worry about. Besides, if any man challenged her to a race and lost, he would be put to death. Many men tried; many men failed; many men paid the price.
Then along came Hippomenes, who fell in love with Atalanta at first sight, and prayed to Aphrodite for assistance. The goddess gave him three golden apples to make use of during the race. Every time Atalanta ran ahead of him, Hippomenes threw a golden apple away from the path, which Atalanta felt compelled to retrieve.
You can guess where this ends up.
Atalanta gets distracted by the three golden apples to such an extent that it’s Hippomenes who crosses the finish line first. He wins; she loses; they get married. (Hippomenes forgot to thank Aphrodite, though, and she afflicted the couple with a passion so intense that they ended up having sex in a temple and were promptly turned into lions, quite possibly by the goddess Artemis, as punishment for Atalanta breaking her vow of virginity.)
I have to confess that one of the things I notice about this myth now, as an adult, is the way it hinges on a man getting the better of an accomplished, independent woman through an act of low cunning, that being the only way any man has any hope of succeeding against her. But for the purposes of this post, those gender politics are incidental to my point.
It’s the golden apples I’m more interested in. The golden apples and the race.
I’ve been saying for years, usually to drama students in training, that audiences are always locked in a race with whatever they encounter — a play, a dance piece, a film, a TV show, but I’d extend it much further now to include books, sculptures, paintings, video games, and also things like buildings, gardens, fine dining meals… Anything that someone creates which is designed to be experienced in some way by someone else. The race is always on, whether anyone acknowledges it or not.
Audiences love to try and get ahead in this race, to anticipate what’s coming next and, best of all, to anticipate the ending before the ending actually arrives. They do it by drawing upon their memories — individual and collective — of how stories work, tapping into their innate or conscious understanding of something they (or people in general) have encountered before, and using it to predict how the thing they’re encountering will work now. Their approach assumes that they are somehow cleverer and more powerful than the maker of the thing, and they just love to be proved right when everything turns out the way they just knew it would.
I know this, because I do it myself, a lot. I try not to, but it’s a terribly hard habit to resist. The more I read/watch/experience, the more I try to win each and every new race. We all secretly love the Ready Brek internal glow that comes from being the clever dick. It takes an enormous effort of will to combat the impulse; one way of battling it is through trying hard to understand what someone is trying to do.
But, Dear Maker, since most people find it an impossible urge to resist, this presents us with a chink in their armour which we can gleefully exploit.
We can let the audience start running ahead of us, straight out of the traps, and off they’ll go, smug and satisfied that they’ve already got a head start on us. That’s when we throw the first golden apple — something which forces them to relate to this encounter in a new, different, unexpected way. If they’re committed to the race, they’ll go after the apple. I can almost guarantee they will. And that gives us a chance to run past them. But it won’t be long before they’re hard on our heels, or maybe even nosing in front again. But that’s okay. Let them. We’ve got plenty more golden apples in our satchel.
It’s up to you how many golden apples you pack. But the important thing is that you make sure you’ve thrown them all by the time you get to the very end of the thing you’ve made. And I can pretty much guarantee, the committed audience will speed off after them every single time, and will come running back as hard as they can, in the deluded and perhaps arrogant belief that they can still beat us to the finish.
If they’re up against an unconfident apple-thrower, they may well cross the line ahead of us. For that reason, I’d always recommend keeping one apple back to throw close to the end. Let them think they’ve experienced all the twists and turns you’ve got in store for them, then BAM! Throw them one more. Off they go. And then we’re the ones who get to chest our way through the tape and let the confetti rain down on our heads.
I think it’s easy to see how you could apply this theory to art forms with any kind of obvious narrative, structure or flow built into them, but I’d argue it’s also just as achievable with less tangibly structured things, too — such as the buildings, gardens and fine dining meals I mentioned earlier. Every encounter which engages with an audience brims with potential for some golden apple-throwing. You just have to figure out where and how to do it, and that can be a lot of fun.
So, whatever it is you’re making, try being a bit more Hippomenes. By which I mean, make judicious use of your golden apples. (When it comes to him rigging a race to ensnare someone into doing something they categorically don’t want to do, he’s obviously NOT a role model I’d recommend — so, as always, use your discretion with this.)
