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This is somewhat embarrassing to admit, but here goes. A handful of novels rest next to my bed, all only partly consumed. On my smartphone, I'm midway through over three dozen listening titles, which looks minor next to the nearly fifty digital books I've abandoned on my digital device. That doesn't count the growing stack of advance copies beside my side table, competing for praises, now that I have become a professional writer personally.

Beginning with Dogged Completion to Purposeful Letting Go

Initially, these figures might look to corroborate recently expressed comments about current attention spans. An author noted a short while ago how simple it is to distract a reader's focus when it is divided by digital platforms and the news cycle. They remarked: “Perhaps as readers' focus periods change the fiction will have to adapt with them.” However as an individual who used to doggedly complete whatever title I started, I now consider it a human right to put down a book that I'm not connecting with.

Our Short Time and the Abundance of Possibilities

I do not think that this tendency is caused by a limited attention span – rather more it stems from the awareness of time moving swiftly. I've consistently been struck by the Benedictine maxim: “Hold the end every day in view.” A different idea that we each have a just finite period on this Earth was as sobering to me as to anyone else. However at what different time in our past have we ever had such immediate entry to so many incredible masterpieces, anytime we choose? A glut of options awaits me in any library and on any screen, and I want to be intentional about where I channel my energy. Might “abandoning” a book (abbreviation in the book world for Incomplete) be rather than a mark of a weak intellect, but a thoughtful one?

Reading for Understanding and Insight

Notably at a period when book production (consequently, selection) is still controlled by a certain social class and its concerns. Even though engaging with about people different from our own lives can help to build the capacity for compassion, we furthermore select stories to think about our personal lives and place in the universe. Before the titles on the racks better represent the backgrounds, lives and issues of prospective individuals, it might be very challenging to keep their interest.

Modern Authorship and Consumer Interest

Certainly, some writers are indeed effectively creating for the “contemporary focus”: the short prose of selected modern books, the focused pieces of different authors, and the brief chapters of various modern stories are all a wonderful example for a shorter style and technique. And there is an abundance of author tips geared toward grabbing a consumer: refine that initial phrase, enhance that beginning section, elevate the drama (higher! higher!) and, if writing crime, place a victim on the first page. Such guidance is entirely solid – a possible agent, editor or reader will use only a a handful of precious minutes choosing whether or not to proceed. There is no benefit in being difficult, like the writer on a workshop I attended who, when questioned about the storyline of their manuscript, declared that “it all becomes clear about 75% of the way through”. No writer should subject their reader through a series of challenges in order to be understood.

Creating to Be Accessible and Allowing Patience

Yet I do compose to be understood, as to the extent as that is possible. On occasion that needs leading the consumer's attention, guiding them through the narrative step by succinct beat. Occasionally, I've understood, insight takes time – and I must allow me (as well as other authors) the freedom of meandering, of building, of straying, until I find something meaningful. A particular writer makes the case for the fiction discovering innovative patterns and that, instead of the traditional plot structure, “other patterns might enable us imagine new methods to craft our stories vital and true, persist in producing our novels original”.

Transformation of the Book and Current Formats

From that perspective, each perspectives align – the fiction may have to evolve to accommodate the today's consumer, as it has repeatedly achieved since it began in the 1700s (in its current incarnation today). Perhaps, like previous novelists, tomorrow's writers will go back to releasing in parts their novels in periodicals. The upcoming these writers may even now be releasing their writing, chapter by chapter, on online services such as those accessed by many of monthly visitors. Genres change with the times and we should let them.

Beyond Limited Attention Spans

However we should not claim that all shifts are entirely because of shorter attention spans. If that were the case, concise narrative anthologies and flash fiction would be regarded considerably more {commercial|profitable|marketable