Truisms in Narrative — With Don DeLillo

Most stories go along, reporting actions and events, delivering internal thoughts of characters and direct dialogue, offering imagery, metaphors, and other devices — and this is enough. It’s very robust, in fact. These elements make for a rich text, with ample variety, a full reading experience. As a writer you’ve got your hands full attending to things such as the five senses in your descriptions: the sights, sounds, smells, touches and tastes in your character’s fictional world. But there’s a sentence type that falls outside this scope. It’s a different breed entirely. Not all writers even use it. But Don DeLillo uses it pretty regularly, and to good effect.

The best this term I can come up with is truism. That falls a little short, however. Checking the definition of truism, we get :

truism, 1: an undoubted or self-evident truth, especially one too obvious to mention.

That’s close. DeLillo does include categorical statements that assert a truth in the form of a generalized observation. But they’re definitely not obvious or self-evident. They’re highly unique, whether broad or nuanced. But they are anything but obvious.

Are they maxims?

maxim, 1: a general truth, fundamental principle, or rule of conduct. E.g., "Don't count your chickens before they're hatched."