There Is No Endgame

A while back, Goodreads asked me to annotate ten of the most popular Kindle highlights in Bandwidth. I love snatching glimpses into other people’s creative processes, and these notes give you a sneak peek into mine.

From the novel:

Schemes begat schemes begat schemes. Outside the false constraints of sport, there was no such thing as decisive victory. There was only the blind fumbling of the fallible, of which history was its record.

Annotation:

One key difference between narrative and reality is that while fiction often builds toward a crux upon which the future depends, in the real world there is no endgame.

Instead, the world keeps turning, actions beget reactions, yesterday’s heroes become tomorrow’s villains, ideas wax and wane, and we live through it all straining to hear the signal in the noise.

Read all ten highlights and annotations here. It was a fun exercise that provides an unusually granular perspective on craft.

Eliot Peper is the author of nine novels, including Cumulus, Bandwidth, and, most recently, Veil. He publishes a blog, sends a monthly newsletter, and tweets more than he probably should.