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It's slightly uncomfortable to confess, but I'll say it. Several books wait beside my bed, every one incompletely finished. Inside my phone, I'm midway through 36 listening titles, which looks minor alongside the forty-six ebooks I've left unfinished on my e-reader. That does not include the expanding collection of early copies beside my side table, vying for praises, now that I have become a professional author in my own right.

Starting with Dogged Completion to Intentional Setting Aside

On the surface, these figures might appear to corroborate recent comments about today's attention spans. An author observed recently how simple it is to distract a reader's attention when it is fragmented by online networks and the news cycle. He suggested: “It could be as individuals' focus periods shift the literature will have to adapt with them.” But as an individual who once would stubbornly get through any book I picked up, I now view it a individual choice to put down a book that I'm not connecting with.

Life's Short Duration and the Glut of Options

I wouldn't believe that this practice is due to a short attention span – rather more it relates to the sense of existence slipping through my fingers. I've consistently been struck by the Benedictine teaching: “Keep death each day in view.” A different point that we each have a mere 4,000 weeks on this planet was as sobering to me as to others. But at what other moment in history have we ever had such immediate entry to so many amazing works of art, anytime we desire? A surplus of treasures meets me in every bookshop and behind any digital platform, and I aim to be deliberate about where I direct my energy. Is it possible “DNF-ing” a novel (term in the publishing industry for Did Not Finish) be rather than a mark of a limited focus, but a thoughtful one?

Choosing for Understanding and Self-awareness

Especially at a time when publishing (and therefore, commissioning) is still led by a specific group and its quandaries. While engaging with about individuals unlike ourselves can help to strengthen the capacity for understanding, we also choose books to think about our personal lives and place in the world. Unless the books on the displays better represent the experiences, lives and issues of prospective audiences, it might be extremely challenging to maintain their focus.

Modern Authorship and Consumer Attention

Naturally, some novelists are indeed successfully writing for the “today's attention span”: the concise prose of some recent books, the compact sections of additional writers, and the short parts of various contemporary books are all a excellent example for a briefer form and method. And there is plenty of author advice designed for capturing a audience: hone that initial phrase, enhance that opening chapter, increase the stakes (higher! further!) and, if creating crime, put a victim on the opening. Such advice is completely good – a potential representative, publisher or audience will spend only a a handful of valuable seconds deciding whether or not to continue. There is no point in being obstinate, like the individual on a workshop I participated in who, when challenged about the storyline of their book, announced that “the meaning emerges about three-quarters of the through the book”. Not a single novelist should force their reader through a series of difficult tasks in order to be grasped.

Crafting to Be Accessible and Giving Time

Yet I absolutely compose to be clear, as much as that is possible. At times that demands guiding the audience's interest, guiding them through the narrative point by efficient beat. Occasionally, I've understood, comprehension requires time – and I must give my own self (and other authors) the grace of wandering, of layering, of digressing, until I discover something authentic. An influential writer contends for the story developing fresh structures and that, rather than the conventional narrative arc, “other forms might enable us conceive novel ways to create our tales dynamic and true, keep creating our books fresh”.

Change of the Novel and Current Platforms

Accordingly, the two opinions align – the fiction may have to evolve to fit the contemporary reader, as it has repeatedly done since it first emerged in the 18th century (in its current incarnation now). It could be, like previous writers, tomorrow's creators will return to serialising their novels in periodicals. The next such writers may even now be publishing their writing, part by part, on online platforms like those accessed by millions of regular users. Genres change with the times and we should allow them.

Beyond Brief Focus

However let us not assert that any evolutions are entirely because of reduced attention spans. If that were the case, brief fiction compilations and very short stories would be regarded much more {commercial|profitable|marketable