CLARENDON HOUSE PUBLICATIONS

Astute readers of this series may note that the ‘trick’ - if it can be called a ‘trick’ - of mastering attention has, in the end, not much to do with going out there into the world seeking it. Billions of units of currency, millions of hours of time, hundreds of thousands of people are engaged in the practice of attention-seeking as you read this. By ‘attention-seeking’ I mean literally that they are using all their energies and the latest technologies of the internet to sc

We have travelled far on this journey through the Seven Levels of Attention, all the way from the void of Zero Attention in which most of us live, through the hard-to-monitor Momentary Attention of passers-by, to the Intermittent Attention of those whom we have managed to attract a little, then on up to Captured Attention when we have convinced them to buy our book, which leads to Emerging Attention as they read it and Focussed Attention as they are gripped by it, all the way

How does any author build into his or her work those factors which bring about Deep Attention, that level of attention which means that the book will change the way the reader sees the world? Here are some tips: 1. Have a Big Theme. If you’re planning to have a big effect, you’ll need to have a big theme. If you’re writing a romance novel, don’t just write about Jill and George and their foibles - write about Love and Romance and Relationships as grand topics within you

Whether you are a new writer, or one who is seeking to lift your writing to a new level of communication, these seven levels of attention should be of interest to you. 1. Zero Attention. This is the level of attention you probably get from the world at large, unless you are a celebrity of some kind. You might think of it as a problem - and most of the marketing mistakes made by authors old and new arise because they think of this vast ocean of inattention as a problem. The

Engaging characters, intriguing plots, appropriate settings - these are all tools used by master authors to captivate readers’ attention and manipulate it. But when the subject matter is Meaning itself, and when that Meaning is portrayed poetically, the power is such that it can produce lasting effects upon a readership. Take, for example, Shakespeare’s masterpiece Hamlet. Seeing a performance of Hamlet featuring Simon Russell-Beale I was once struck by how deeply personal

The Holy Grail for writers is the final level, Deep Attention, and it’s safe to say that not many writers will ever reach this point. Deep Attention occurs when Focused Attention has been so effective, and possibly prolonged over a whole work - or certainly significant proportions of it - that its contextual meaning spills over and actually transforms the way the reader views life. It’s the kind of level of a religious scripture - something that, once read, changes the wa

Sequential meaning pulls attention forward; vertical meaning sticks attention downward or inward; contextual meaning ripples outward. If vertical meaning was centripetal, drawing attention into the words and images on the page, contextual meaning would be centrifugal, spinning meaning outward into the actual world of the reader. In the first, the reader finds meaning within the text; in the second, the reader finds meaning in Life because of the text. The two work together an

When we read, then, we enter a kind of trance - but this is not the kind of trance which results in an immobility of mind as well as of body. As in other trance conditions - hypnosis, meditation, prayer - physical stillness is part of the package when we read, usually. But whereas in other trances our minds are also emptied and still, when we read something quite different is happening: we are pulled forward through something; we are attracted closer to something; we are made

What happens to us when we are reading a good story? Would it be true to say that we enter a half-conscious state characterised by an absence of response to external stimuli? If a story is gripping enough, it seems to literally absorb our attention. People can speak to us, screens or music can be on in the background, things can be whizzing by (if we are in a car or on a bus or train) and we don’t pay them any attention. That’s one definition of the word ‘trance’. The w