Books I Didn't Complete Reading Are Accumulating by My Bedside. Could It Be That's a Benefit?
This is slightly awkward to admit, but here goes. Five novels sit beside my bed, each incompletely read. Inside my smartphone, I'm some distance through 36 audio novels, which pales alongside the 46 digital books I've left unfinished on my Kindle. This doesn't include the growing stack of early copies beside my side table, competing for blurbs, now that I have become a published novelist myself.
From Determined Completion to Deliberate Letting Go
On the surface, these numbers might seem to support recently expressed thoughts about today's focus. An author commented a short while ago how simple it is to distract a person's concentration when it is scattered by social media and the constant updates. The author remarked: “Maybe as people's focus periods shift the fiction will have to adapt with them.” But as an individual who once would stubbornly finish whatever title I started, I now regard it a individual choice to set aside a book that I'm not enjoying.
Our Short Time and the Abundance of Options
I wouldn't believe that this practice is due to a short focus – instead it relates to the feeling of existence passing quickly. I've often been affected by the spiritual principle: “Keep death each day in view.” Another idea that we each have a just limited time on this world was as sobering to me as to anyone else. However at what previous point in human history have we ever had such direct availability to so many incredible creative works, at any moment we desire? A wealth of options meets me in every library and within every device, and I strive to be intentional about where I direct my attention. Could “abandoning” a story (abbreviation in the book world for Unfinished) be not just a sign of a limited focus, but a selective one?
Choosing for Understanding and Self-awareness
Notably at a period when book production (and thus, acquisition) is still controlled by a particular group and its issues. Although exploring about characters unlike our own lives can help to develop the ability for compassion, we furthermore choose books to consider our own journeys and place in the society. Until the titles on the shelves more fully reflect the identities, lives and concerns of prospective individuals, it might be very challenging to keep their attention.
Contemporary Writing and Reader Engagement
Certainly, some novelists are actually successfully writing for the “contemporary focus”: the tweet-length prose of some modern novels, the compact sections of different authors, and the short parts of several modern stories are all a wonderful demonstration for a more concise form and technique. And there is no shortage of writing advice aimed at securing a consumer: hone that initial phrase, improve that beginning section, increase the drama (higher! higher!) and, if writing crime, place a victim on the beginning. That suggestions is completely sound – a possible representative, editor or buyer will use only a few valuable seconds deciding whether or not to proceed. There's no benefit in being contrary, like the person on a class I attended who, when questioned about the plot of their novel, declared that “the meaning emerges about three-quarters of the through the book”. No novelist should subject their audience through a set of 12 labours in order to be grasped.
Writing to Be Accessible and Giving Space
Yet I do write to be understood, as far as that is possible. At times that requires guiding the consumer's interest, steering them through the plot beat by succinct step. Occasionally, I've understood, comprehension takes time – and I must grant my own self (as well as other writers) the grace of wandering, of layering, of digressing, until I discover something authentic. A particular thinker argues for the story developing innovative patterns and that, as opposed to the traditional plot structure, “alternative patterns might help us imagine novel ways to make our stories dynamic and true, keep creating our novels fresh”.
Transformation of the Story and Current Mediums
In that sense, the two perspectives converge – the novel may have to evolve to suit the contemporary audience, as it has repeatedly accomplished since it originated in the 18th century (in the form currently). Perhaps, like previous novelists, future writers will return to releasing in parts their books in periodicals. The next those writers may even now be releasing their work, part by part, on digital sites including those accessed by many of frequent visitors. Art forms evolve with the times and we should let them.
More Than Short Focus
But we should not say that all changes are all because of reduced attention spans. Were that true, concise narrative collections and very short stories would be considered much more {commercial|profitable|marketable