We need to talk about Ugly Like Me

Hopefully you know by now that a full-length novel for Ugly Like Me is coming. The longer I worked on the outline, gone back and reread it, considered the characters and marinated on their personalities and traumas, the more I’ve seen that a major plot point in the novella needs to change for the novel.

The major plot point? The noncon between Korey and Leah.

I’ve been hesitant to make the change and this announcement to the point that it made me put off writing the novel altogether for a while. Most of y’all picked up a dark romance that centered on an unhinged MMC featuring noncon with praise, and I imagine that’s what you’re expecting for the full-length novel, too. But Korey and Leah’s story has been with me for a very long time, and I think taking the noncon out is necessary to stay true to their story.

“Then why the hell did you put it in in the first place, Aurora?!”

Dude, this was just supposed to be a novella, one and done, nothing serious 😭 It ended up being one of those projects I had to get out the door ASAP, and by the time I realized it should've been a longer novel, it was too late.

On top of that, I’m an experimental writer. I like to push myself to write in new ways, try new tropes, push my own boundaries. Make myself uncomfortable. Writing a story with blatant, detailed noncon and an unhinged character – writing an actual dark romance for once – was me making myself uncomfortable and experimenting to see if I could do it.

I came. I saw. I conquered.

God, I love this cover.

While I ended up liking what I wrote more than I thought I would, it’s not exactly something I want to write ever again. Neither noncon nor dark romance.

Morally black, irredeemable, unhinged-for-no-reason characters and stories are not my thing. I don’t like reading it, nor do I like writing it. Basically, I make myself cringe when I go back to reread parts of Ugly Like Me.

So for the sake of Korey and Leah’s full-length story, I’m taking out the noncon between them and leaving it at dubcon at the most. Their story makes so much more sense without it, and I promise it will be so worth the change.

That’s what matters at the end of the day, in my opinion: that every writer writes the story as it’s meant to be told.

And honestly, even though Korey might be fucked up, he loves Leah too much.

If you love the original novella as it is, stay tuned – I may have something up my sleeve in the next newsletter 👀