Fiction Writing Style History

Written on January 19, 2026

Matthew, The Workshop, and Villa

2023 was when I started writing seriously with my autobiography and journal. It is particularly at this time that my stories took on this idea of the epitome of grace and beauty, the idea of individuation, the idea of becoming, the idea of self-actualization, the idea of totalization.

Before that, my writings were very much playful, experimental, surreal, and random. 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019.

It was only in 2023 that my writings took on a psychologically realistic and philosophical character, where the power fantasy is used to make way for the totalization of the self amid the psychological torture and anguish. This was only solidified in 2024 from January to April.

From May to December 2024, I did not write any long-form work.

But from June to September in 2025, I put myself through 4 months of accelerated, relentless critique feedback loops and created a collection of 128 vignettes (scheduled to publish one a day) with a total of 58,800 words. It was under a workshop voice that combined elements of the following:

cinematic/behaviorist
kinetic
textural, sensorily, descriptive
minimalism
plodding, step-by-step realism
humid, lived-in spaces
naturalistic code-switching
ennui
raw reality
hitching, flumping, sweating

That workshop voice diverged sharply from my February–April 2024 Matthew (my longest fiction at 200,000 words and the flagship work for that era of "the epitome of grace and beauty" psychological realism) style that combined elements of the following:

idiosyncratic internal and sensory maximalism
philosophical prose
intellectual analysis
poetic prose
strategy
tactical
functional dialogue style
intense psychological realism and horror
cyclical, manic-depressive, recursive, monologic, decreeing stream-of-consciousness
bursts of grandiose, solipsistic, egoistic, manic, surreal, abstract-expressionist, traumatic, ecstatic, mythic, psychotic, god-like, self-destructive violence
minimalist description
time skips
dancing, flowing, raging

From October 5 to November 14, 2025, I wrote my latest longest story (72,000 words) Villa, which came directly out of the workshop period. It involved elements of the following:

grounded procedural realism
kinetic micro-tactical and technique dangerous combat puzzle analysis (after Chapter 19)
neurotic, repressed, and hyper-vigilant slice-of-life
Banter-filled, negotiating dialogue
character-driven banter
dissonant tonal whiplash
traumatic kinetic scenes (before Chapter 19)
minimalist description
redemptive, recovering survivor's progression
trembling, scanning, gripping

Back in Time

But let's go back in time to 2023, with the flagship story of that year, Peter, a pre-cursor to Matthew. These are the elements of its style:

psychological, strategy, and violence match with Matthew
absurdist, non-sequiturs in dialogue
hyper-maximalist descriptive realism (i.e., microscopic textures)

2022 (Don):

surrealist, nonsensical, complex, abstract imagery
deadpan absurdism
fever dream macro-narrative sequence
feverish wording, grammar, syntax, and scene structure
micro-meso-macro, inter-character perspective collapse/flattening
abstract, quasi-meta-fictional declarations

2022 (Our Leader):

deadpan absurdism
surrealist, dream-like, and feverish
kinetic minimalism
visceral slapstick
dissociative psychological realism

2021 (Google Docs):

random, chaotic LitRPG
erratic absurdist humor
surrealist, manic, introspective stream-of-consciousness
kinetic slapstick violence
dissociated portal fantasy
incantatory abstract prose (when "the epitome of grace and beauty" first appeared among thousands of obsessively typed anaphoric sentences often starting with "He wanted" or "She wanted")

2020 (Wattpad):

dissociated surrealism
rapid and abrupt dream logic
deadpan absurdism
kinetic minimalism
introspective

2019 (What Do I Want):

fragmented stream-of-consciousness narrative
meta-fictional introspection
dissocative realism
raw confessional
absurdist slice-of-life
neurodivergent interiority

As for the stories depicted in this "writer writing about writing" What Do I Want story, these are their style:

pulp-fiction pastiche
trope-heavy
melodramatic
condensed

Closure

And recently, I've gotten closure and healing on August 2025, especially following my completion of 3.5 million words in a two-year span for my autobiography-journal on July 4, 2025. At the start of January 2026, I also reached the end of my oeuvre and the end of the three struggles: struggle for psyche, struggle for what to write (oeuvre), and struggle for method (competence).

Today is now January 19, 2026, the day before my birthday. Now, it feels like "a ship's logbook, like killing time, regulating myself, doing whatever, remaking like Disney." I'm metaphorically just "watering the plants," but I can still access the flow state instantly and write thousands of words every day. But yes, there's no more urgency. "Boring" is probably a good stark word for it. Maybe, it's objectively just "mundane" and "normal," since "boredom" is relative in this case.