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This is somewhat embarrassing to confess, but let me explain. Five titles wait next to my bed, all only partly consumed. Within my mobile device, I'm midway through 36 audio novels, which looks minor next to the nearly fifty ebooks I've left unfinished on my Kindle. That does not account for the expanding pile of advance copies next to my coffee table, competing for endorsements, now that I work as a professional writer in my own right.

From Determined Finishing to Deliberate Letting Go

On the surface, these stats might look to confirm recent thoughts about today's focus. A writer noted a short while ago how easy it is to lose a reader's focus when it is fragmented by digital platforms and the 24-hour news. They stated: “Maybe as individuals' concentration change the fiction will have to change with them.” Yet as an individual who previously would persistently get through every title I began, I now consider it a human right to stop reading a story that I'm not in the mood for.

Life's Limited Duration and the Abundance of Choices

I do not feel that this practice is caused by a limited focus – more accurately it relates to the sense of time slipping through my fingers. I've always been affected by the Benedictine principle: “Hold the end daily in view.” A different reminder that we each have a mere 4,000 weeks on this world was as shocking to me as to anyone else. But at what different moment in history have we ever had such direct access to so many mind-blowing creative works, anytime we choose? A wealth of options greets me in every bookstore and on every device, and I aim to be purposeful about where I direct my attention. Might “abandoning” a story (shorthand in the publishing industry for Did Not Finish) be not a sign of a limited mind, but a selective one?

Selecting for Connection and Insight

Notably at a time when the industry (and thus, acquisition) is still controlled by a particular social class and its issues. Although engaging with about people unlike us can help to strengthen the muscle for compassion, we also select stories to think about our personal lives and role in the society. Before the books on the displays better depict the experiences, stories and concerns of possible readers, it might be extremely challenging to hold their interest.

Contemporary Authorship and Reader Interest

Certainly, some authors are actually skillfully creating for the “modern interest”: the tweet-length prose of some modern books, the focused fragments of different authors, and the short chapters of various contemporary titles are all a wonderful example for a briefer approach and technique. And there is an abundance of author tips designed for capturing a consumer: hone that opening line, enhance that start, raise the stakes (more! higher!) and, if writing thriller, place a mystery on the beginning. That suggestions is entirely solid – a possible representative, house or audience will spend only a few valuable seconds determining whether or not to proceed. There's no benefit in being difficult, like the person on a workshop I joined who, when questioned about the storyline of their book, announced that “the meaning emerges about 75% of the through the book”. No novelist should subject their reader through a set of difficult tasks in order to be comprehended.

Crafting to Be Accessible and Allowing Space

Yet I certainly compose to be comprehended, as far as that is feasible. On occasion that requires guiding the reader's attention, guiding them through the narrative step by economical beat. Occasionally, I've discovered, insight requires perseverance – and I must allow me (as well as other creators) the grace of exploring, of adding depth, of digressing, until I find something true. A particular writer makes the case for the novel discovering innovative patterns and that, rather than the traditional dramatic arc, “alternative patterns might help us envision new approaches to create our stories vital and real, continue creating our works original”.

Transformation of the Book and Contemporary Formats

Accordingly, both viewpoints align – the story may have to adapt to suit the today's reader, as it has constantly done since it began in the historical period (in the form now). Maybe, like previous writers, future authors will go back to serialising their books in periodicals. The future these authors may already be publishing their content, chapter by chapter, on web-based sites like those used by many of regular users. Genres change with the era and we should allow them.

Not Just Brief Concentration

However we should not claim that every changes are all because of limited concentration. Were that true, short story compilations and flash fiction would be viewed considerably more {commercial|profitable|marketable