In the last decade or so, there is a growing problem of fans being injured by foul balls and bats flying into the stands at baseball games. Discussion of fan-protection is becoming more important. Why are spectator injuries becoming more prevalent?
Photos at the moment of impact of a foul ball or accidently thrown bat show dozens of people in the photo frame, with many looking down at their smart phones. In an effort to miss nothing, they miss a lot. Like a baseball screaming toward their head.
There are no more foul balls or flung bats in today’s game than fifty years ago, but fifty years ago we were paying much closer attention to the actual game.
Thirty years ago this week, the world started to change in a big way, when the first Nintendo Entertainment System released. It started an exploding global revolution that took a tendency to look at screens honed by generations of watching movies and television and elevated it to never-before-seen levels in the subsequent decades with the growth of video games and computer generated images.
And then there are smart phones.
The medical community recommended that children should spend no more than two hours per day interacting with a screen, yet research shows that by the time kids are in high school, a majority are spending far more than that per day. And it appears from the research that girls are doing it at a higher percentage than boys, so forget about this being a male-only issue.
And it is not just about the kids either.
Seventy year-olds are just has bad as seventeen year olds when it comes to looking at their phones constantly. God forbid you miss a video during a lunch with friends of your grandson giggling with milk coming out of his nose.
Because of the thousands of messages that bombard us in a modern society, amplified by the use of various communication technologies, we are now living in a world where people cannot focus on any one thing longer than a few minutes at a time.
Book readers are preoccupied, distracted and have such short “patience” spans that if authors don’t write in a manner to hold their attention, they won’t.
Screens are here to stay and are everywhere. The poorest nations in the world install smart-phone infrastructure before they have running water.
Authors and publishers need to adjust how they write and publish for 21st century reality. As much as you might like it to be different, none of this will ever change back to some make-believe idyllic time where kids spent hours in libraries and there are bookstores in every town.
Information is instant, gratification is immediate and patience-span for anything but instant and immediate is non-existent.
No matter what format a book is in, the reader carries with them their “patience span” and will expect to be pulled through by the content of that book.
Good books and writing will be read, like always, but you might ask yourself whether a reader will ever make it through the first few pages of what you wrote.
They might not have the patience.
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See my tongue-in-cheek post from last December on the subject of communicating with a distracted audience. Click Here to read “Communicating to a Distra (Hey look at that!) cted Audience.”
The ISBN Turns 50!
Hi Dan,
You’re right about all ages being attached to their phones.
Decades ago children were taught social manners. This was lost along the way, and both of my sons had to take a very short class on social manners. (Thank goodness I’d taught them some manners.) The classes taught in college involve which fork to use and stuff like that. It seems to me we need to teach social manners on how, and when, to use our phones.
How do you feel about novellas? They seem to be popular in the romance market, but what about men readers?
Thanks!
I agree that screens are here to stay. They make a mind hungry for more screen, more entertainment, more fast-moving videos/games/whatever.
And I’ve seen people in their seventies addicted to their screens, just as much as I’ve seen teenagers (and pre-teens) addicted to their screens. We are holding off on giving our boys cell phones or hand held games for as long as we can get away with. Interaction with the games, the screens, actually change the synapses in the brain.
That being said, it is reality that writers need to write fast-paced stories. Rachelle Gardner at Books and Such wrote a somewhat tongue-in-cheek blog post about not being Tolstoy or Dicken (http://www.booksandsuch.com/blog/you-are-not-tolstoy-or-dickens/). Writing styles, or reader expectations have drastically changed. If writers want to be published, their work needs to meet reader expectations. Which, being said, probably opens up a whole new topic.
I think novellas are fine for variety, but full length books are still important. We are in a page-by-page, line-by-line battle. If I write a boring 20,000 word novella for men, the reader won’t make it to page three.
So, should I write a 10,000 word novella? Nope, still lost them on page 3.
It’s about writing a great story, not word count.
I agree 100%. Our readers have very short attention spans. Life moves quickly for them. Instant gratification is the order of the day. I tell my editing clients that they need to cut down on their descriptions of people and places and on telling sections. It’s all about showing. Make your book like a movie, clipping along at the pace of a car chase. Otherwise, like Dan said, you’ll loose them on page 1. You can write a full-length novel that will keep your readers’ attention, even if they are on their phones. It’s a matter of fast pacing, interesting, believable, and relatable characters, and great hooks at both the beginning and ending of scenes and chapters.
I have an awful confession to make. I have noticed (is there a “cringe” font?) that when I read popular action/detective-type novels, I find myself getting impatient to know how it resolves. And I realized it’s because I’m used to action/detective-type TV shows that resolve neatly within an hour (40 minutes, minus commercials). But I pray thee mercy, other books I will read for days quite happily, because character development and character arcs and tapestried story lines and emotional truth and where’s-the-highlighter insights and writing so good it makes you ache draw me in and involve me to the point where I leave my comfortable chair and dissolve into the pages.
I believe it is proper to periodically invoke the umbrella excuse from high school, “everyone is doing it.” which should cover you from any persecution you might need to endure from writers/editors/anyone for doing that.
You are not alone.
Hey…Great target metaphor. I am an actual shooter. When using rifle use: Sight, Steady aim, Suck it up, Squeeze trigger. Oh well: 4 rules.
For those of us who love complex stories with believable characters and rich description, this trend is depressing. Complexity doesn’t come wrapped up in a low word count. I’m disappointed that so many of the Christian fiction volumes carried by bulk outlets like Walmart are novella collections. I’ve read and even reread some delightful novellas with rich characters who seem like real people, but I’ve also read several where the characters act in rash and unrealistic ways because they don’t have enough word count to develop as believable 3-dimensional people. I’ve even seen that with some authors whose longer works I have enjoyed because they had beautifully crafted characters acting with realistic motivations. I find myself regretting the time I spent reading the story when that occurs.
Dan,
At the Wheaton WTP conference, I came well-prepared to pitch a completed historical novel, and you were one of several agents and publishers that were very encouraging about it. You even graciously suggested another agent for whom it would be a better fit than it would have been for you, and I pursued that lead. Thank you! But in addition to acquiring several invitations to submit a full proposal at that conference, I also learned about the attention span issue you addressed today: my chapters averaged about twice as long as the speaker said is standard has become because of reader impatience. So I came home and rewrote the entire novel, more than doubling the number of chapters without adding much word count, by creating smooth, well-considered new chapter endings and beginnings. But that meant I submitted the proposals a couple of months after the conference, instead of promptly. I told the agents the reason for the delay in the cover letter, but I have had not a single response from anyone. I’ve read enough posts on this site to know that all kinds of factors go into an agent’s decision to represent or not represent a client, but should I now add “chapter length” and/or “delay in submitting after receiving an invitation” to them? Thanks again.
There is always the element of immediacy at work following a conference. In those two months an agent might have received 200-300 other book proposals.
Dan, I’m sorry I’m so dense, but I am trying to learn from an expert. Are you referring to immediacy that the author feels about submitting the invited proposal ASAP, or that the agent feels about reading ones that caught his/her attention and were just requested at the conference? Do agents keep track of whom they invited to submit proposals? Do you/they or the assistants ever actually get to the bottom of a pile of 200-300? To be perfectly candid, I’m still in the process of sending proposals to all seven agents and publisher reps who invited me to send them for the two books I pitched in Wheaton in June. When I finished rewriting the one whole book for chapter length, I submitted a proposal to an agent, let her 90-day-consideration time lapse w/o hearing anything, then submitted a proposal to another, am still in her 60-day consideration time, etc. Is it too late to keep sending proposals, now that there is no immediacy? Sigh. Such a learning curve! 😀
The process is not scientific or logical. You had the attention of some people at the conference, but then 2-3 months later, other people got their attention.
Not every agent keeps track who they speak with at a conference, depending instead on the author to strike while the iron is hot.
Conferences are great for making connections, but over time, those connections grow cold rapidly.
If you meet someone who has interest, they should hear from you within a few days following the meeting.
Within a few DAYS??? Oh, my word. I sure blew that opportunity, didn’t I? Yep. Learning curve. Need to start planning for my next conference. Thanks!
Grabbing the readers attention has always been key. Keeping it … the world of authorship opens.
Thanks Dan for a good read that I followed to the end!