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This is slightly embarrassing to reveal, but here goes. A handful of titles sit beside my bed, all partially consumed. On my smartphone, I'm partway through thirty-six listening titles, which pales alongside the 46 digital books I've left unfinished on my Kindle. This does not include the increasing pile of advance versions beside my living room table, striving for endorsements, now that I am a professional author myself.

Beginning with Dogged Completion to Purposeful Abandonment

At first glance, these figures might seem to confirm recent opinions about modern attention spans. One novelist noted recently how simple it is to break a individual's attention when it is divided by online networks and the 24-hour news. The author remarked: “Perhaps as individuals' attention spans change the writing will have to adapt with them.” However as someone who used to stubbornly get through whatever novel I started, I now regard it a human right to stop reading a story that I'm not connecting with.

The Limited Duration and the Glut of Possibilities

I don't feel that this practice is a result of a brief attention span – instead it stems from the sense of existence slipping through my fingers. I've often been affected by the monastic maxim: “Keep death each day in mind.” Another reminder that we each have a mere finite period on this world was as sobering to me as to others. And yet at what different time in human history have we ever had such direct entry to so many mind-blowing creative works, whenever we want? A surplus of options greets me in every bookshop and on every digital platform, and I aim to be purposeful about where I focus my time. Is it possible “abandoning” a book (term in the publishing industry for Did Not Finish) be rather than a sign of a limited intellect, but a discerning one?

Choosing for Connection and Insight

Notably at a period when book production (consequently, commissioning) is still dominated by a certain group and its quandaries. Although exploring about people distinct from our own lives can help to build the ability for understanding, we additionally read to think about our individual journeys and position in the society. Before the works on the shelves better reflect the backgrounds, realities and interests of possible individuals, it might be very difficult to maintain their focus.

Current Writing and Audience Interest

Naturally, some authors are actually successfully crafting for the “contemporary attention span”: the short prose of some current books, the compact pieces of different authors, and the short chapters of numerous recent titles are all a impressive showcase for a briefer style and method. Additionally there is plenty of craft guidance geared toward securing a audience: hone that first sentence, improve that start, increase the tension (further! further!) and, if crafting crime, put a dead body on the opening. This guidance is completely solid – a potential agent, publisher or reader will use only a a handful of precious seconds determining whether or not to continue. There's no benefit in being obstinate, like the person on a workshop I attended who, when questioned about the plot of their novel, announced that “everything makes sense about three-quarters of the into the story”. Not a single author should subject their follower through a sequence of 12 labours in order to be comprehended.

Crafting to Be Accessible and Allowing Patience

And I do compose to be understood, as far as that is feasible. Sometimes that needs guiding the reader's interest, steering them through the story point by succinct beat. At other times, I've discovered, comprehension takes time – and I must grant my own self (and other writers) the freedom of meandering, of adding depth, of straying, until I find something authentic. One thinker contends for the fiction developing fresh structures and that, as opposed to the standard dramatic arc, “alternative forms might help us envision novel ways to create our narratives dynamic and real, keep producing our novels fresh”.

Change of the Story and Modern Formats

From that perspective, the two opinions align – the novel may have to adapt to fit the contemporary reader, as it has constantly accomplished since it began in the historical period (in its current incarnation now). It could be, like earlier writers, future writers will go back to serialising their novels in newspapers. The future such creators may even now be sharing their writing, section by section, on digital services including those accessed by millions of regular users. Art forms shift with the times and we should let them.

More Than Brief Concentration

However do not claim that any evolutions are all because of shorter attention spans. Were that true, brief fiction anthologies and very short stories would be regarded far more {commercial|profitable|marketable