It’s called:
“Realism” — and here’s an example (based on a recent experience I had):
— -
The room was dark and quiet, calm.Kels was asleep. Her back was to me. I was sitting in a recliner, reading something, listening to my son’s heartbeat come through the fetal monitor.Maybe I’ll take a nap too, I thought.I closed my eyes.The door opened.My eyes opened.“OK—” the nurse said, “—we’ve a grumpy baby in there…”Kels sat up. I stood up.“I’m gonna have you roll over, OK?” the nurse told my wife.Then, suddenly, another nurse walked in. And another. And another. Then the obstetrician walked in. Then the anesthesiologist. Suddenly, there were a dozen people surrounding my wife, shifting her this way and that way, propping her up, telling her “it’s gonna be fine, Dear, just breathe, Dear, breathe.”Faaahk, I thought. Fuckfuckfuck.I backed up until my heel hit the wall. I was in the corner now. My wife was on her knees and elbows now. I couldn’t see her face anymore.A doctor approached me. “Dad?”“I’m.”“OK, Dad, Baby’s heart rate just dropped.”“Dropped?”“Yes,” she said. “One-ten to one-sixty is normal in utero…”I looked at the monitor. It was beeping and bouncing: fifty-four, fifty-seven, fifty-two.“You can see it's in the fifties now,” she said.“Why?” I said. My mouth was dry.“We can’t be sure,” said the doctor, “but it’s probably the umbilical cord…”She kept talking, elaborating, but I couldn’t focus on her words.I just saw my wife.
And heard the monitor.
And felt my throat closing.Then, suddenly, the beeping stopped and someone said, “heart rate stabilized.”And the room cleared out as quickly as it had filled up. Suddenly, it was just me and my wife and the doctor, who said, “this can’t keep happening.”“But what actually happened?” my wife asked.The doctor repeated herself. “The umbilical cord—” she said, “—it’s compromised.”Then she told us if the heart rate deceleration keeps happening, a C-section is necessary. Kelsey squeezed my hand. I squeezed back.An hour later, it did happen again. And again after that.“OK,” said my wife. She signed the liability form.“OK,” said the doctor, and the nurses began rolling Kelsey’s bed towards the operating room. Before she turned the corner, we signed ‘I Love You’ to each other. 🤟
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Suddenly, it was just me, alone, sitting there, picking skin off my thumb and tapping my foot. I looked down. My thumb was bleeding. I stopped picking and put it in my mouth.The nurse walked in. “Kelsey’s all prepped,” she said, “you ready to join her?”“Yeh.”She gave me some scrubs. “I know it’s scary,” she said, “but it’s gonna be OK.”And it was:Beau was born, healthy, crying. And soon after, my wife — also healthy, also crying — was feeding him.And I was wiping my eyes, too, grateful.
— -Studying “Realism” shaped my copywriting and marketing work.
And it can inform yours, too.
I’ll explain:
I studied Realism as an English major in college.
One of my professors described it as “working class” writing because it’s efficient and deliberate, intentional and functional. Like copywriting, there is no excess.
Something else about Realism: it never lets The Reader inside the mind of the characters. The Reader is only able to see the characters’ actions and hear their dialogue:
She did this.
He said that.
Hence the term “Realism” — it feels real:
You can’t see inside someone’s head when you’re speaking with them or observing them. You can only gather context — and form opinions — from their words and their actions.
Realism.
As a literary student, I immersed myself in this style because I loved how it conveyed so much with so little. I was fascinated by the visuals it created — and with such efficiency, such language economy.
This is because the sparseness itself actually creates opportunities for The Reader to visualize the scene. It creates “holes” for The Reader to fill in with her own imagination, her own experiences, which makes the storytelling more engaging, more compelling.
You’ll notice in Beau’s birth story above, I never express my inner monologue.
I don’t walk you through my emotions (despite how intense they were). I only let you:
1) see what people do and
2) hear what people say.
The rest is on you, The Reader, to visualize and imagine, to fill in the gaps. This onus makes the scene more palpable, more relatable, whether you’ve had a similar experience or not.
And in many ways, this is what good marketing does: it gives people an opportunity to quickly see themselves in a situation, to visualize a scenario, good or bad, painful or pleasant.
Want to study Realism?
Start by reading stories by the authors who did it best. My suggestions:
“What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” by Raymond Carver
“Would You Suggest Writing as a Career” by Charles Bukowski
“Hill Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway
Enjoy.
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Hey there, thanks for reading. :)If you want more “micro” content, feel free to explore 100s of articles, interviews, courses, and series — all free. Enjoy!Eddie Shleyner
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