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This is slightly awkward to admit, but here goes. Several novels rest beside my bed, all incompletely finished. Inside my phone, I'm partway through 36 listening titles, which looks minor next to the 46 ebooks I've left unfinished on my Kindle. That fails to count the increasing collection of pre-release copies next to my living room table, vying for endorsements, now that I have become a professional novelist myself.

Beginning with Determined Completion to Purposeful Setting Aside

Initially, these stats might seem to confirm recently expressed comments about today's focus. An author observed a short while ago how simple it is to distract a reader's attention when it is fragmented by digital platforms and the constant updates. The author suggested: “Maybe as readers' attention spans change the literature will have to adjust with them.” But as a person who used to stubbornly get through every novel I started, I now view it a human right to put down a book that I'm not enjoying.

The Finite Duration and the Abundance of Choices

I don't feel that this tendency is due to a short focus – more accurately it comes from the sense of existence moving swiftly. I've often been affected by the monastic teaching: “Place mortality every day in mind.” Another reminder that we each have a just 4,000 weeks on this world was as horrifying to me as to anyone else. But at what previous point in our past have we ever had such direct access to so many amazing masterpieces, at any moment we choose? A surplus of riches meets me in every bookstore and behind every digital platform, and I want to be deliberate about where I direct my attention. Might “not finishing” a story (shorthand in the publishing industry for Incomplete) be rather than a mark of a poor intellect, but a discerning one?

Selecting for Understanding and Reflection

Particularly at a time when the industry (and thus, acquisition) is still controlled by a certain group and its concerns. Although engaging with about characters distinct from ourselves can help to develop the capacity for empathy, we additionally choose books to think about our personal experiences and position in the universe. Until the titles on the racks more accurately depict the experiences, stories and interests of prospective readers, it might be very hard to keep their attention.

Current Writing and Audience Engagement

Certainly, some writers are actually skillfully crafting for the “today's focus”: the short style of some recent novels, the compact sections of additional writers, and the brief chapters of several contemporary stories are all a impressive example for a briefer style and style. Furthermore there is an abundance of craft advice geared toward capturing a audience: perfect that first sentence, improve that beginning section, elevate the stakes (higher! higher!) and, if writing crime, introduce a victim on the beginning. This guidance is all good – a prospective publisher, editor or reader will devote only a a handful of precious moments choosing whether or not to forge ahead. There's little reason in being contrary, like the person on a writing course I participated in who, when confronted about the plot of their book, announced that “everything makes sense about 75% of the way through”. Not a single writer should put their audience through a series of challenges in order to be grasped.

Creating to Be Understood and Giving Space

Yet I absolutely write to be understood, as far as that is achievable. Sometimes that needs holding the consumer's attention, guiding them through the narrative step by succinct point. At other times, I've discovered, comprehension requires patience – and I must give me (as well as other creators) the freedom of wandering, of adding depth, of deviating, until I hit upon something true. A particular thinker contends for the story finding fresh structures and that, as opposed to the standard dramatic arc, “other structures might enable us conceive innovative approaches to make our tales alive and authentic, persist in creating our novels original”.

Transformation of the Novel and Contemporary Mediums

Accordingly, both opinions align – the novel may have to adapt to accommodate the modern consumer, as it has repeatedly done since it first emerged in the historical period (as we know it currently). Perhaps, like earlier authors, coming creators will go back to releasing in parts their works in periodicals. The next those writers may currently be releasing their content, part by part, on web-based platforms like those accessed by many of frequent readers. Creative mediums evolve with the times and we should allow them.

Not Just Short Attention Spans

But let us not say that all shifts are completely because of limited attention spans. If that were the case, concise narrative anthologies and micro tales would be considered much more {commercial|profitable|marketable