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It's somewhat uncomfortable to confess, but here goes. Several novels rest beside my bed, each partially consumed. On my phone, I'm some distance through over three dozen audio novels, which looks minor alongside the nearly fifty Kindle titles I've left unfinished on my Kindle. The situation fails to account for the increasing collection of advance editions near my coffee table, vying for blurbs, now that I have become a professional writer myself.

Beginning with Dogged Completion to Purposeful Letting Go

Initially, these figures might look to support contemporary opinions about modern concentration. A writer observed recently how easy it is to break a person's attention when it is scattered by social media and the 24-hour news. The author suggested: “Perhaps as readers' focus periods evolve the writing will have to adjust with them.” However as a person who previously would persistently complete whatever novel I started, I now regard it a individual choice to set aside a story that I'm not connecting with.

Our Short Duration and the Abundance of Choices

I do not feel that this habit is due to a limited concentration – instead it stems from the feeling of time passing quickly. I've consistently been impressed by the Benedictine teaching: “Keep death every day in mind.” One reminder that we each have a just 4,000 weeks on this world was as sobering to me as to others. And yet at what previous point in our past have we ever had such immediate availability to so many mind-blowing creative works, anytime we want? A surplus of options meets me in each bookshop and within each digital platform, and I want to be purposeful about where I channel my energy. Is it possible “not finishing” a novel (shorthand in the publishing industry for Did Not Finish) be not a indication of a weak mind, but a thoughtful one?

Choosing for Understanding and Self-awareness

Notably at a time when book production (consequently, acquisition) is still dominated by a specific group and its quandaries. Even though engaging with about characters different from ourselves can help to develop the capacity for compassion, we also read to consider our personal lives and place in the universe. Unless the works on the shelves more accurately reflect the identities, lives and issues of possible audiences, it might be quite hard to keep their attention.

Current Storytelling and Reader Engagement

Of course, some authors are indeed effectively crafting for the “modern focus”: the tweet-length style of selected modern books, the focused sections of different authors, and the brief parts of several recent stories are all a impressive demonstration for a more concise form and technique. And there is no shortage of author advice aimed at capturing a consumer: perfect that initial phrase, improve that opening chapter, raise the stakes (more! higher!) and, if writing thriller, introduce a dead body on the beginning. That suggestions is all good – a prospective publisher, publisher or buyer will devote only a several valuable moments determining whether or not to continue. It is no point in being contrary, like the person on a writing course I joined who, when questioned about the narrative of their manuscript, declared that “the meaning emerges about three-fourths of the into the story”. No writer should force their follower through a set of challenges in order to be grasped.

Writing to Be Accessible and Granting Patience

But I do compose to be comprehended, as far as that is feasible. At times that needs leading the consumer's interest, guiding them through the narrative step by efficient step. Occasionally, I've understood, comprehension demands patience – and I must grant my own self (as well as other authors) the freedom of meandering, of adding depth, of deviating, until I find something authentic. An influential thinker argues for the fiction discovering new forms and that, instead of the traditional narrative arc, “different structures might enable us imagine novel methods to craft our tales alive and authentic, continue producing our works novel”.

Transformation of the Story and Modern Mediums

Accordingly, the two opinions agree – the fiction may have to evolve to suit the contemporary consumer, as it has continually done since it first emerged in the 1700s (as we know it today). It could be, like past writers, future authors will revert to publishing incrementally their works in newspapers. The future such writers may even now be publishing their work, section by section, on digital platforms such as those visited by many of regular readers. Art forms change with the period and we should allow them.

More Than Brief Focus

But do not assert that all shifts are all because of limited attention spans. If that were the case, short story anthologies and very short stories would be considered far more {commercial|profitable|marketable