THE BROKEN SYMPATHY OF DOERR’S UNIVERSE
Warning: Contains spoilers for All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr In his essay “The Fantastic Imagination,” George MacDonald describes one of the fundamentals of writing an imagined world: “[An author’s] world once invented, the highest law that comes next into play is, that there shall be harmony between the laws by which the new world has begun to exist; and in the process of his creation, the inventor must hold by those laws… Obeying law, the maker works like his creator; not obeying law, he is such a fool as heaps a pile of stones and calls it a church.” There is a wealth of insight I cut out from between these sentences, so I highly suggest following the link I shall provide below to read the full work, whether or not you care for writing fantasy. After all, the principle MacDonald describes here applies to all fiction: no matter if the world is fantastic or mundane, there must be harmony with the world building, with the laws the author has established....