🔗 Share this article

This is slightly embarrassing to admit, but let me explain. A handful of books sit next to my bed, every one only partly finished. Inside my smartphone, I'm midway through over three dozen audio novels, which looks minor alongside the forty-six Kindle titles I've left unfinished on my e-reader. That does not include the increasing collection of advance versions beside my side table, striving for blurbs, now that I work as a published author myself.

From Dogged Reading to Intentional Abandonment

On the surface, these numbers might appear to confirm recently expressed thoughts about today's concentration. One novelist observed recently how simple it is to lose a reader's focus when it is fragmented by digital platforms and the news cycle. He stated: “It could be as people's concentration change the literature will have to adjust with them.” However as someone who once would doggedly finish whatever book I began, I now regard it a human right to stop reading a novel that I'm not enjoying.

The Short Span and the Wealth of Choices

I wouldn't believe that this practice is due to a limited attention span – rather more it comes from the sense of time passing quickly. I've consistently been struck by the monastic maxim: “Place mortality each day in mind.” Another point that we each have a only limited time on this Earth was as sobering to me as to anyone else. However at what different moment in history have we ever had such immediate entry to so many amazing works of art, whenever we want? A glut of treasures awaits me in each bookshop and on each screen, and I want to be intentional about where I focus my time. Could “DNF-ing” a novel (term in the book world for Did Not Finish) be not a mark of a weak mind, but a discerning one?

Selecting for Connection and Self-awareness

Particularly at a period when publishing (and therefore, selection) is still dominated by a certain group and its quandaries. While reading about characters different from us can help to strengthen the ability for understanding, we additionally read to reflect on our personal lives and role in the world. Until the books on the racks more fully depict the identities, lives and interests of possible individuals, it might be quite challenging to keep their focus.

Contemporary Authorship and Audience Interest

Of course, some writers are skillfully crafting for the “modern attention span”: the tweet-length writing of some modern novels, the tight pieces of others, and the quick chapters of various modern titles are all a wonderful showcase for a more concise style and style. Additionally there is an abundance of craft advice geared toward capturing a audience: hone that opening line, enhance that beginning section, raise the stakes (higher! further!) and, if writing thriller, introduce a dead body on the first page. That guidance is all good – a potential agent, editor or buyer will spend only a a handful of precious moments deciding whether or not to continue. There's no benefit in being obstinate, like the person on a workshop I participated in who, when challenged about the plot of their book, stated that “the meaning emerges about three-fourths of the into the story”. No writer should subject their audience through a set of difficult tasks in order to be comprehended.

Creating to Be Clear and Granting Patience

But I absolutely compose to be understood, as far as that is feasible. On occasion that requires leading the consumer's interest, steering them through the plot point by economical point. Sometimes, I've realised, understanding requires time – and I must give myself (as well as other authors) the grace of meandering, of building, of digressing, until I hit upon something meaningful. A particular author contends for the novel discovering new forms and that, instead of the traditional dramatic arc, “alternative patterns might assist us envision new methods to make our narratives alive and authentic, persist in producing our works original”.

Change of the Story and Modern Formats

From that perspective, the two opinions agree – the novel may have to change to accommodate the contemporary consumer, as it has repeatedly accomplished since it began in the 1700s (in its current incarnation currently). Maybe, like previous novelists, tomorrow's authors will revert to publishing incrementally their works in periodicals. The next those authors may even now be releasing their content, part by part, on web-based sites such as those visited by millions of regular users. Art forms evolve with the times and we should let them.

Beyond Short Focus

But we should not claim that any evolutions are completely because of reduced attention spans. Were that true, concise narrative anthologies and micro tales would be considered considerably more {commercial|profitable|marketable