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This is a bit awkward to reveal, but let me explain. Several titles rest beside my bed, each partially read. Within my mobile device, I'm midway through thirty-six audiobooks, which pales alongside the forty-six ebooks I've abandoned on my Kindle. This fails to include the growing stack of pre-release versions beside my coffee table, competing for endorsements, now that I have become a professional author personally.

Starting with Persistent Completion to Deliberate Abandonment

At first glance, these numbers might seem to support recently expressed thoughts about modern attention spans. An author commented a short while ago how easy it is to break a person's attention when it is fragmented by social media and the constant updates. He remarked: “It could be as readers' focus periods evolve the fiction will have to change with them.” Yet as an individual who once would doggedly complete every title I picked up, I now consider it a individual choice to stop reading a story that I'm not enjoying.

Life's Finite Duration and the Wealth of Options

I don't feel that this practice is due to a limited focus – rather more it comes from the sense of existence moving swiftly. I've always been struck by the spiritual principle: “Keep death each day in mind.” A different reminder that we each have a only finite period on this planet was as sobering to me as to everyone. But at what other time in our past have we ever had such immediate access to so many amazing creative works, at any moment we desire? A glut of riches greets me in any bookshop and behind every screen, and I aim to be intentional about where I focus my time. Is it possible “DNF-ing” a novel (shorthand in the literary community for Did Not Finish) be not a indication of a weak intellect, but a selective one?

Choosing for Connection and Reflection

Notably at a era when the industry (consequently, acquisition) is still controlled by a specific group and its quandaries. While reading about individuals unlike ourselves can help to strengthen the capacity for empathy, we also select stories to consider our own lives and position in the society. Unless the books on the shelves more fully represent the identities, realities and concerns of possible individuals, it might be extremely challenging to keep their focus.

Contemporary Authorship and Consumer Engagement

Certainly, some novelists are indeed successfully crafting for the “contemporary focus”: the concise writing of some recent books, the focused pieces of others, and the quick parts of various modern stories are all a impressive demonstration for a shorter form and style. Additionally there is plenty of writing guidance geared toward capturing a audience: refine that initial phrase, polish that start, raise the tension (higher! further!) and, if writing crime, put a dead body on the beginning. That guidance is completely good – a possible publisher, house or buyer will spend only a several limited moments deciding whether or not to continue. There is no point in being difficult, like the writer on a writing course I attended who, when confronted about the narrative of their book, announced that “the meaning emerges about three-quarters of the way through”. No writer should force their follower through a series of challenges in order to be understood.

Creating to Be Accessible and Granting Time

But I do compose to be comprehended, as much as that is feasible. On occasion that demands guiding the audience's attention, directing them through the plot step by succinct beat. At other times, I've understood, insight requires patience – and I must allow me (as well as other writers) the permission of exploring, of adding depth, of deviating, until I find something true. A particular writer argues for the novel developing new forms and that, instead of the traditional narrative arc, “other forms might help us envision new methods to create our narratives alive and true, continue producing our novels original”.

Change of the Story and Current Mediums

In that sense, the two viewpoints align – the fiction may have to evolve to accommodate the contemporary audience, as it has continually accomplished since it first emerged in the 1700s (in its current incarnation currently). It could be, like earlier writers, tomorrow's authors will revert to publishing incrementally their works in periodicals. The future these creators may currently be publishing their content, part by part, on digital services like those used by millions of monthly readers. Creative mediums change with the era and we should permit them.

Not Just Short Attention Spans

But let us not say that all evolutions are all because of limited focus. Were that true, brief fiction anthologies and flash fiction would be viewed much more {commercial|profitable|marketable