Verostic Fiction: A New Genre for the Stories That Don’t Flinch
Introducing the word I needed to describe how I write, raw, honest, character-driven fiction that doesn’t look away.
Verostic Fiction: A New Genre for the Stories That Don’t Flinch
I’ve struggled for a long time to describe the kind of fiction I write. People say “gritty,” “dark,” “raw,” “psychological.” They say my books go places most stories don’t. But none of the usual genre labels, thriller, drama, trauma-lit, literary fiction, felt quite right.
So I stopped trying to fit into the existing boxes. And I made a new one. Today, I want to introduce a word I believe we need, for my work, and for a growing kind of emotionally honest, character-driven storytelling.
Verostic
Adjective / noun
From veritas (Latin: truth) + stylistic suffix suggesting emotional or narrative depth.
Definition:
Verostic fiction is a genre defined by emotional rawness, psychological intensity, and unfiltered human truth. It explores trauma, morality, resilience, and connection through unapologetically honest storytelling. Verostic works often depict gritty realities, abuse, loss, shame, identity, survival, but never for shock alone. They seek to understand, not to sanitise.
While grounded in realism, Verostic stories may borrow from multiple genres, drama, psychological fiction, romance, even mystery, yet remain fiercely character-driven and emotionally anchored. They don’t flinch from the dark, but always make space for softness, intimacy, and hope.
Verostic fiction doesn’t just tell the truth, it makes you feel it.
Neoverostic (adj.)
From neo (Greek: new) + Verostic
Definition:
Neoverostic fiction applies Verostic principles to modern contexts, exploring contemporary trauma, digital identity, intersectionality, and generational tension with the same emotional honesty. It often experiments with form, voice, or structure to reflect fractured lives or shifting perspectives.
Expect raw emotion filtered through today's chaos: fractured families, economic precarity, gender politics, mental health, loneliness in the age of connection.
Neoverostic stories are razor-sharp and present-tense, burning with modern truth.
Postverostic (adj.)
From post (Latin: after) + Verostic
Definition:
Postverostic fiction interrogates or deconstructs the Verostic mode. Often reflective, ironic, or stylistically fragmented, it explores what happens after trauma, truth, or confrontation, the silences, the scars, the reconstruction of meaning.
These stories may feature unreliable narrators, metafictional layers, or broken timelines. They don’t abandon emotional realism but question how memory, narrative, and identity distort it.
Postverostic fiction doesn’t just explore the truth, it wonders whether truth survives the telling.
Aeverostic (adj.)
From aevum (Latin: era, lifetime) + Verostic
Definition:
Aeverostic fiction is a time-rooted subgenre of Verostic storytelling, most often set in the 1980s. It captures emotionally raw narratives within a specific cultural and historical moment, where truth is shaped by the era’s unique pressures: repression, rebellion, subculture, class division, family shame, and gender expectation.
The term is not nostalgic. Aeverostic fiction does not look back fondly, it digs into the past with clarity and courage, reanimating the emotional texture of a generation.
Aeverostic stories live and bleed in their time, but their truths still echo today.
Read The Alpha Flame: Discovery, a work of unapologetically Verostic fiction, and feel the fire for yourself.