The way we read is changing.
At least this is one of the theories by
Nicholas Carr, author of 'The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.' Basically, the way we use the Internet is rewiring our mind in how we absorb and in fact look at information. The skim-and-click technique we use to access what we need when online is making it harder for us to sit down with a 300 page novel and read for long ends at time.
So does this also mean
we are entering a new era of how we write books? This question has subconsciously been playing in the back of my mind as I struggle to get not one, or two, but three books written in the last few years.
Book Project 1: The Traditional Fiction Novel
The first book project is a young adult adventure novel, roughly 400 pages in length, but born out of
frustration with the usual conventions of similar fiction of the time. Long, drawn out dialogues, zero character building and a quick wrap-up in the last 50 pages. Boring! I felt the need to cram a lot of events, character and world-building as possible into 300 pages. Only then it became 450. And then it 600 and then back to 400 until it became (in the opinion of seasoned test readers) a summation of bullet points.
Book Project 2: The Experimental Travelogue
Then came my next book idea: a quick turn around experiment in writing and self-publishing (in draft) a book in only
one week. It would just be a random collection of thoughts put on paper. A blog-to-book if you will. That didn't pan out. I simply
couldn't find the time (or was it Internet-nurtured short attention?) to write the complete thing. It lay in my drawer of unfinished projects for over a year, before I picked it up again thinking: 'What if I turn this into an examination of why people write and read books?' Later it morphed again into a half fictional / half auto-biographical travel story where the main character is alone with his thoughts while riding around the world on his bike. Still:
not fast enough.
Book Project 3: The Collection of Quick Reads
My latest project-to-mature is an anthology sequel to the Grimm's Household Tales (or fairy tales) done in a 'death match throughout time' fashion, mainly
focusing on telling the stories in the abbreviated narrative the originals were told. What has never changed through all these years is my fascination with fairy tales. Something about their intrinsic simplicity of story and format. So I'm writing my sequels in the same fashion. This suits me just fine, what with each story only being roughly 2 pages long, except that I now have approximately 200 stories to tell.
I think I have an answer to why it takes me (and possibly many other potential writers) so long to actual finish a book and see it get published:
information time span deprivation
We all want the information now! I for one simply can't bring myself to write long descriptions of places, events and character interaction when all I really want is to get to the heart of the matter. And yes, despite that being the point of a novel (lest all the new bestsellers become 100 page 'shopping lists')
I think I may have to bite the bullet and commit to writing perhaps the first ever skim-and-link novel. One that reads as fast as it does to order it through Amazon and text your friends about it.
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