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Jan 20, 2023·edited Jan 21, 2023Liked by Charles Schifano

Thanks for a thought provoking post, Charles. I suppose if writers wish to be read, they should be aware of today’s declining attention spans. But shortening sentences and condensing descriptions remove a powerful literary tool. Yes, editing superfluous words makes sense. But other times, artful exposition and lyrical prose are why I’m reading. I don’t read novels to get a legal brief or quick conclusion. I read novels to enjoy the journey. The artfully composed sentences. The cadence and rhythm. The question you explore here remind me of the late William F. Buckley, who was known for his expansive vocabulary. When it was suggested he use more common words, in order to connect with a broader audience, his response was, “Why should I lower the bar of language. Why not encourage people to aspire for more.” Unfortunately, the train of declining attention spans left the station when social media arrived.

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Jan 20, 2023Liked by Charles Schifano

".... readers arrive to every sentence with contemporary habits." I have been thinking about this very thing for the last few months, at first refusing to let it influence my writing, then actually experimenting with micro-fiction -- one-page stories, 50 word stories. They are often my most popular pieces ... which I find dismaying.. People sometimes seek a two-minute read as the distraction between tweets and eBay and Wordle! ( I also see that a good deal of dialog in contemporary films is now through sent messages.) As a reader, I notice that I can still enjoy losing myself in Sir Walter Scott with his beautifully constructed paragraph-long, detailed sentences, but I can no longer tolerate ponderous contemporary works -- especially those that give their premise on the first page and continue to repeat the same thoughts over and over using different words. You have raised such an important question Mr Schifano. I look forward to seeing further comments from your readers and further musings from you on this conundrum.

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I agree from a writer’s viewpoint that the writer should not be constrained or influenced in style or expression to market to a reader. But neither should the reader be compelled to absorb and recall every single detail to make a book memorable. I recall reading many books lost to the world but even long ago I hurriedly read through parts that were less interesting to me without feeling like I missed the experience. It is ,in a way, like looking at a lovely scene in nature. You don’t have to see every leaf or blade distinctly yet they each are a part beautiful greenery. What is sad is if you are to busy or distracted to look at all.

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Jan 22, 2023Liked by Charles Schifano

I think it's a false dilemma. Short sentences or sparse description do not equal more compelling. Good writing always compels a reader to keep reading, but there are innumerable ways to do that. Simply promising "the end is near" isn't a good strategy.

If I remember a recent headline, James Cameron bemoaned the fact that people complained about his new movie being too long and boring, but the same people binge 10 hours of Game of Thrones or whatever. It isn't about being brief. It's about being genuinely compelling.

Of course, different strokes for different folks. If you want billions of views, you do need to appeal to the lowest common denominator. But if your goal as a novelist is to get a billion readers, you're probably in the wrong genre.

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Feb 11, 2023Liked by Charles Schifano

I’m wondering what is really going on with the “attention” problem.

Is it really something new? Or is it merely a manifestation of the universal tendency to do the small and easy things before doing the big and laborious ones.

If that’s the case, then I think that the real problem is that we have a hell of a lot more small things to be attended to before we get to the large things, and don’t seem to have the tools to deal with that. In the past, our defacto tools were time & distance, which acted as filters to reduce the amount of easy and inconsequential things to draw our immediate attention.

So it is not a change in our mental processes, but rather, the impact of a change in the information environment. In short, we have not figured out how to replace the tools that kept our monkey minds in check.

Should a writer, recognizing that, reformat his writing into small things that readers will do because it’s easy? It really depends on what his objectives are, and obviously there can be multiple objectives, including making a living.

The writers I want to read are the ones who use their ability to write in a creative and engaging fashion in the context of a story, fiction or non-fiction, that I find interesting. I don’t see how that can be done very well by making things easier to read.

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Great essay, thank you. I think about the topic regularly and this piece is another portion of oil to that mind fire.

I keep quoting these Brodsky’s words but allow me to do that again, “It is only if we have resolved that it is time for Homo sapiens to come to a halt in his development that literature should speak the language of the people. Otherwise, it is the people who should speak the language of literature.”

Regarding “disjointed narrative”, and other things you mentioned people often resort to, I think they don’t pay enough attention to or don’t understand how powerful form can be in supporting content as well as playing against it, such as the language of a scene describing– let’s say– a paranoid person, can be also “paranoid” in a way (e.g. sentences deviate from extremes to extremes, images shift rapidly, lots of questions, what ifs etc) but why should language simulate the short attention span in a story that is not about that? I believe, there’s suitable stylisation for any occasion, and not using it, instead trying to make things simple for the sake of mass appeal or as an attempt to keep up with the times, as you said, is a missed opportunity to say the least.

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I'm fascinated why this piece has me so outraged. I'm with John (and I guess William F. Buckley). It isn't the writer's duty to help solve the in/attention of a reader.

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