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This is somewhat uncomfortable to reveal, but here goes. A handful of books sit beside my bed, all only partly finished. Within my phone, I'm midway through over three dozen audio novels, which seems small next to the forty-six Kindle titles I've abandoned on my Kindle. That does not include the expanding stack of advance copies near my side table, competing for blurbs, now that I work as a published novelist personally.

Beginning with Persistent Reading to Intentional Abandonment

At first glance, these stats might appear to confirm recently expressed opinions about today's concentration. One novelist observed not long back how easy it is to lose a person's concentration when it is scattered by social media and the news cycle. The author suggested: “Perhaps as readers' attention spans change the literature will have to adapt with them.” However as a person who used to persistently finish every novel I picked up, I now consider it a human right to put down a novel that I'm not in the mood for.

Our Short Span and the Glut of Options

I wouldn't believe that this practice is due to a brief attention span – more accurately it comes from the awareness of existence slipping through my fingers. I've always been impressed by the spiritual maxim: “Place the end daily in mind.” A different point that we each have a mere finite period on this world was as shocking to me as to everyone. But at what different point in history have we ever had such instant access to so many incredible works of art, anytime we desire? A surplus of options meets me in any bookshop and behind any screen, and I aim to be intentional about where I channel my energy. Could “DNF-ing” a story (shorthand in the literary community for Did Not Finish) be not just a indication of a weak mind, but a thoughtful one?

Selecting for Empathy and Self-awareness

Especially at a period when book production (consequently, commissioning) is still dominated by a particular social class and its concerns. While reading about people unlike our own lives can help to strengthen the capacity for understanding, we additionally select stories to reflect on our individual journeys and role in the universe. Until the titles on the racks more accurately represent the experiences, lives and concerns of potential audiences, it might be quite hard to hold their interest.

Current Writing and Reader Attention

Certainly, some novelists are effectively creating for the “modern interest”: the concise style of certain recent novels, the focused fragments of different authors, and the quick chapters of various modern stories are all a wonderful demonstration for a briefer form and style. And there is no shortage of writing advice designed for grabbing a audience: perfect that first sentence, improve that beginning section, increase the tension (more! further!) and, if creating crime, introduce a victim on the opening. This suggestions is completely solid – a possible publisher, publisher or audience will devote only a several limited moments deciding whether or not to continue. There's little reason in being difficult, like the individual on a class I participated in who, when questioned about the storyline of their manuscript, declared that “the meaning emerges about 75% of the into the story”. Not a single writer should put their reader through a series of difficult tasks in order to be grasped.

Creating to Be Clear and Giving Space

Yet I do write to be comprehended, as far as that is feasible. On occasion that demands holding the reader's hand, directing them through the narrative step by economical point. Occasionally, I've realised, understanding takes time – and I must allow my own self (and other authors) the freedom of exploring, of adding depth, of deviating, until I discover something true. A particular thinker argues for the fiction discovering innovative patterns and that, instead of the traditional plot structure, “alternative forms might enable us imagine innovative methods to make our narratives dynamic and true, continue making our books original”.

Change of the Novel and Contemporary Formats

From that perspective, the two perspectives agree – the novel may have to adapt to accommodate the contemporary reader, as it has constantly done since it first emerged in the historical period (as we know it currently). Perhaps, like past novelists, future authors will go back to releasing in parts their works in periodicals. The next such writers may already be publishing their content, part by part, on online services such as those accessed by countless of frequent visitors. Creative mediums shift with the era and we should let them.

More Than Brief Attention Spans

But do not assert that every shifts are all because of shorter attention spans. If that was so, brief fiction compilations and very short stories would be considered far more {commercial|profitable|marketable