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It's somewhat embarrassing to admit, but here goes. A handful of books sit beside my bed, each only partly read. Within my smartphone, I'm midway through thirty-six audio novels, which seems small next to the forty-six Kindle titles I've set aside on my Kindle. This does not account for the growing pile of early copies next to my side table, vying for blurbs, now that I am a published novelist myself.

Beginning with Dogged Finishing to Purposeful Letting Go

At first glance, these numbers might seem to support recently expressed comments about today's concentration. A writer noted a short while ago how simple it is to distract a individual's focus when it is fragmented by digital platforms and the news cycle. He stated: “Perhaps as people's focus periods shift the writing will have to adapt with them.” Yet as a person who previously would doggedly complete whatever title I began, I now consider it a human right to put down a novel that I'm not enjoying.

The Finite Duration and the Glut of Options

I do not believe that this habit is due to a brief attention span – instead it stems from the sense of existence slipping through my fingers. I've always been affected by the Benedictine maxim: “Hold mortality each day in view.” A different reminder that we each have a just limited time on this world was as shocking to me as to others. And yet at what different moment in our past have we ever had such immediate availability to so many amazing works of art, anytime we want? A glut of riches meets me in any library and behind each screen, and I strive to be deliberate about where I direct my time. Could “abandoning” a story (shorthand in the book world for Unfinished) be rather than a indication of a limited mind, but a selective one?

Selecting for Empathy and Insight

Especially at a period when the industry (consequently, commissioning) is still dominated by a specific group and its quandaries. Even though exploring about characters unlike our own lives can help to develop the ability for understanding, we also choose books to consider our personal experiences and role in the universe. Before the works on the racks more accurately reflect the identities, lives and concerns of possible readers, it might be very hard to keep their interest.

Current Writing and Consumer Attention

Certainly, some authors are actually effectively crafting for the “today's interest”: the tweet-length writing of some recent novels, the focused sections of others, and the brief parts of numerous recent stories are all a wonderful showcase for a briefer approach and technique. And there is an abundance of writing advice geared toward securing a consumer: hone that opening line, polish that opening chapter, increase the drama (higher! higher!) and, if creating thriller, place a mystery on the beginning. This suggestions is entirely sound – a potential representative, publisher or audience will spend only a several precious seconds determining whether or not to forge ahead. There is no point in being difficult, like the person on a class I attended who, when questioned about the storyline of their book, declared that “it all becomes clear about three-quarters of the through the book”. No writer should force their audience through a set of difficult tasks in order to be grasped.

Creating to Be Understood and Allowing Patience

Yet I do create to be understood, as far as that is feasible. Sometimes that requires holding the audience's hand, steering them through the narrative step by succinct point. Sometimes, I've discovered, understanding takes patience – and I must give my own self (and other writers) the permission of meandering, of building, of deviating, until I discover something true. One author contends for the fiction discovering new forms and that, as opposed to the standard plot structure, “other structures might enable us conceive novel ways to create our tales alive and true, continue making our works original”.

Transformation of the Novel and Modern Mediums

From that perspective, both opinions converge – the story may have to evolve to fit the modern audience, as it has repeatedly accomplished since it originated in the 18th century (as we know it now). Maybe, like past novelists, tomorrow's writers will return to publishing incrementally their novels in publications. The next such writers may already be sharing their writing, section by section, on web-based sites such as those visited by millions of monthly readers. Creative mediums shift with the period and we should permit them.

Not Just Limited Focus

However we should not say that all evolutions are all because of limited focus. Were that true, concise narrative collections and flash fiction would be regarded far more {commercial|profitable|marketable