It's slightly awkward to admit, but I'll say it. A handful of books sit by my bed, all incompletely read. Within my smartphone, I'm some distance through thirty-six listening titles, which pales alongside the 46 ebooks I've set aside on my e-reader. This fails to count the expanding pile of pre-release versions near my living room table, striving for endorsements, now that I work as a professional author in my own right.
At first glance, these figures might appear to corroborate contemporary comments about modern focus. An author noted a short while ago how effortless it is to distract a reader's focus when it is divided by online networks and the 24-hour news. He remarked: “Maybe as readers' concentration evolve the fiction will have to change with them.” But as someone who previously would stubbornly get through whatever book I began, I now view it a human right to set aside a book that I'm not in the mood for.
I wouldn't believe that this tendency is caused by a brief focus – instead it comes from the feeling of existence passing quickly. I've always been affected by the Benedictine principle: “Keep the end each day before your eyes.” One reminder that we each have a mere 4,000 weeks on this Earth was as sobering to me as to others. However at what previous time in human history have we ever had such instant availability to so many incredible works of art, at any moment we desire? A surplus of treasures greets me in each bookshop and within each device, and I strive to be intentional about where I focus my attention. Is it possible “abandoning” a story (shorthand in the book world for Incomplete) be not a indication of a weak focus, but a thoughtful one?
Especially at a time when the industry (and therefore, acquisition) is still controlled by a certain group and its quandaries. While exploring about characters distinct from our own lives can help to build the muscle for understanding, we furthermore select stories to think about our own experiences and role in the world. Before the works on the shelves better reflect the identities, stories and issues of prospective readers, it might be quite challenging to hold their focus.
Of course, some authors are skillfully creating for the “contemporary attention span”: the concise prose of selected recent works, the tight sections of others, and the short parts of several recent stories are all a impressive example for a shorter style and method. Additionally there is plenty of writing advice designed for securing a audience: hone that first sentence, enhance that opening chapter, raise the tension (more! further!) and, if crafting crime, put a mystery on the beginning. This guidance is completely solid – a prospective agent, publisher or audience will spend only a few valuable moments deciding whether or not to continue. It is no benefit in being difficult, like the person on a workshop I participated in who, when challenged about the storyline of their book, stated that “the meaning emerges about 75% of the way through”. No novelist should put their audience through a series of difficult tasks in order to be grasped.
Yet I absolutely compose to be clear, as far as that is achievable. At times that demands guiding the reader's hand, directing them through the story point by succinct point. Occasionally, I've realised, comprehension takes perseverance – and I must allow my own self (along with other creators) the freedom of meandering, of layering, of straying, until I find something meaningful. An influential thinker contends for the story discovering fresh structures and that, as opposed to the traditional dramatic arc, “different patterns might help us imagine innovative methods to craft our narratives alive and true, continue producing our novels original”.
In that sense, the two perspectives converge – the fiction may have to evolve to fit the modern audience, as it has continually accomplished since it originated in the 18th century (in the form now). It could be, like past writers, future authors will revert to publishing incrementally their novels in newspapers. The next such authors may already be releasing their work, part by part, on digital sites like those visited by many of monthly readers. Genres evolve with the times and we should permit them.
However do not say that all changes are entirely because of limited concentration. If that was so, concise narrative anthologies and flash fiction would be viewed considerably more {commercial|profitable|marketable
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