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This is slightly embarrassing to confess, but let me explain. A handful of titles sit next to my bed, all incompletely read. Inside my phone, I'm partway through over three dozen audiobooks, which pales alongside the nearly fifty ebooks I've set aside on my e-reader. The situation fails to include the expanding pile of advance editions near my coffee table, vying for endorsements, now that I work as a professional writer myself.

Beginning with Persistent Completion to Intentional Abandonment

On the surface, these numbers might look to corroborate recent comments about today's attention spans. An author commented a short while ago how simple it is to distract a individual's concentration when it is divided by digital platforms and the 24-hour news. The author suggested: “Perhaps as individuals' focus periods evolve the writing will have to adjust with them.” However as a person who used to persistently finish every title I picked up, I now regard it a human right to set aside a story that I'm not in the mood for.

Our Finite Span and the Abundance of Options

I wouldn't think that this habit is caused by a short focus – more accurately it comes from the feeling of life slipping through my fingers. I've consistently been struck by the spiritual teaching: “Hold death each day in view.” One point that we each have a mere limited time on this world was as horrifying to me as to anyone else. But at what different time in our past have we ever had such instant entry to so many amazing works of art, whenever we want? A glut of options greets me in any bookshop and behind each digital platform, and I aim to be purposeful about where I direct my time. Is it possible “not finishing” a novel (term in the literary community for Incomplete) be not a sign of a limited focus, but a thoughtful one?

Choosing for Empathy and Reflection

Particularly at a era when publishing (consequently, selection) is still led by a certain group and its quandaries. While exploring about people unlike us can help to strengthen the muscle for compassion, we furthermore choose books to think about our personal journeys and place in the world. Before the books on the shelves better reflect the experiences, realities and interests of prospective readers, it might be very hard to hold their attention.

Current Writing and Reader Attention

Certainly, some writers are actually successfully crafting for the “modern attention span”: the tweet-length prose of some modern works, the compact pieces of additional writers, and the brief sections of several contemporary stories are all a excellent demonstration for a shorter approach and style. And there is plenty of writing advice aimed at grabbing a reader: refine that opening line, enhance that beginning section, elevate the drama (more! more!) and, if crafting thriller, put a dead body on the opening. This advice is completely solid – a prospective publisher, publisher or buyer will use only a few precious minutes deciding whether or not to forge ahead. There's no point in being difficult, like the person on a workshop I attended who, when confronted about the narrative of their manuscript, stated that “it all becomes clear about 75% of the way through”. Not a single author should put their audience through a sequence of 12 labours in order to be grasped.

Crafting to Be Accessible and Allowing Space

Yet I certainly compose to be clear, as much as that is achievable. At times that needs guiding the audience's hand, steering them through the plot beat by efficient beat. Sometimes, I've discovered, comprehension demands time – and I must allow my own self (along with other creators) the permission of meandering, of layering, of digressing, until I discover something authentic. One writer argues for the fiction finding innovative patterns and that, as opposed to the traditional narrative arc, “different forms might assist us envision novel methods to create our tales vital and authentic, keep making our works original”.

Change of the Novel and Current Formats

In that sense, both viewpoints converge – the novel may have to change to fit the today's reader, as it has continually accomplished since it began in the 18th century (in its current incarnation now). It could be, like past authors, coming authors will go back to serialising their works in publications. The next those creators may even now be publishing their content, part by part, on digital services such as those visited by many of frequent readers. Genres change with the times and we should let them.

Not Just Brief Focus

But do not claim that any changes are all because of shorter concentration. Were that true, concise narrative compilations and flash fiction would be considered much more {commercial|profitable|marketable