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This is a bit awkward to confess, but let me explain. Several novels wait by my bed, each partially read. Inside my smartphone, I'm midway through thirty-six audiobooks, which seems small next to the forty-six digital books I've set aside on my digital device. That doesn't count the expanding pile of advance versions beside my side table, vying for praises, now that I have become a professional writer personally.

Beginning with Persistent Reading to Intentional Setting Aside

At first glance, these numbers might look to support recent opinions about today's concentration. An author observed recently how easy it is to lose a person's concentration when it is scattered by social media and the 24-hour news. The author suggested: “Perhaps as readers' focus periods evolve the literature will have to adapt with them.” But as someone who previously would stubbornly complete every novel I began, I now regard it a individual choice to put down a novel that I'm not connecting with.

Our Limited Duration and the Wealth of Choices

I wouldn't think that this tendency is caused by a brief attention span – rather more it stems from the feeling of existence passing quickly. I've often been affected by the Benedictine maxim: “Hold the end every day in view.” A different point that we each have a mere limited time on this Earth was as horrifying to me as to anyone else. However at what different time in our past have we ever had such direct access to so many amazing works of art, whenever we desire? A surplus of treasures awaits me in each bookstore and on every screen, and I want to be purposeful about where I direct my energy. Could “abandoning” a story (term in the book world for Did Not Finish) be not a sign of a poor focus, but a thoughtful one?

Reading for Empathy and Self-awareness

Especially at a period when the industry (consequently, selection) is still led by a particular social class and its issues. Although engaging with about people unlike us can help to build the muscle for understanding, we furthermore select stories to consider our individual experiences and position in the world. Until the works on the racks more fully depict the identities, stories and concerns of potential individuals, it might be quite hard to hold their attention.

Contemporary Storytelling and Audience Attention

Certainly, some novelists are indeed successfully crafting for the “modern focus”: the tweet-length writing of certain recent novels, the compact fragments of additional writers, and the brief sections of various contemporary books are all a wonderful showcase for a more concise style and style. Additionally there is no shortage of writing tips designed for capturing a audience: hone that first sentence, improve that opening chapter, increase the tension (more! more!) and, if writing mystery, place a dead body on the opening. This suggestions is completely good – a prospective publisher, house or audience will use only a a handful of limited seconds choosing whether or not to continue. There is no benefit in being difficult, like the writer on a workshop I participated in who, when questioned about the narrative of their book, declared that “the meaning emerges about three-fourths of the through the book”. No author should subject their reader through a set of 12 labours in order to be understood.

Creating to Be Understood and Allowing Space

Yet I do create to be clear, as to the extent as that is possible. Sometimes that needs holding the audience's hand, directing them through the story step by succinct point. Occasionally, I've understood, understanding takes perseverance – and I must allow myself (as well as other writers) the grace of meandering, of building, of digressing, until I discover something true. A particular thinker makes the case for the fiction finding fresh structures and that, rather than the traditional dramatic arc, “other structures might help us imagine innovative approaches to make our stories alive and true, persist in making our works novel”.

Change of the Story and Current Formats

In that sense, each perspectives align – the story may have to adapt to fit the modern reader, as it has constantly achieved since it began in the historical period (as we know it now). It could be, like previous writers, future creators will return to serialising their works in periodicals. The next such writers may even now be releasing their content, part by part, on online platforms such as those used by millions of regular users. Genres change with the era and we should let them.

Beyond Short Concentration

However let us not assert that any changes are entirely because of limited focus. Were that true, short story compilations and micro tales would be regarded much more {commercial|profitable|marketable