How “After” author Anna Todd built an erotica empire from One Direction fanfiction

[stewie_e]

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Like “Fifty Shades of Grey” author E.L. James, Anna Todd, 30, is part of a growing movement of authors who self-published online first. Now Todd has book and movie deals with “After” and “After We Collided.”

Todd’s writing of the novel was inspired by the music and fandom of One Direction and started her writing on Wattpad.

Comments

[joe_pwnz_pete]

I used to write so much fanfiction, mostly short stories, but I can never ever get into the idea of RPF it's so squicky and weird.

I'm actually currently finally working on my lifelong pet project of a medieval fantasy novel that originally started as a Harry Potter Founders Era roleplay.

[kerosene_pill]

May the literary gods bless your project to completion!

[joe_pwnz_pete]

Aw thank you!!! I'm like 9 pages in to actual story-writing, but I've almost filled up an entire notebook's worth of just brainstorming notes.

[wakeupem]

My trainer, who normally has great taste in movies and shows, recommended this to me. Oh well. Guess not everyone can be perfect.

[keskt]

My roommate who is awesome and smart loves the twilight movies and is trying to get me to spend a Saturday doing a marathon... oh well

[scionofawhisper]

I saw the movie After and really liked it. lmao. Looking forward to the sequel.
But I don't read fan fiction cause it's usually super sexual and I am ace... I had no idea what the movie was based on when I saw it. Shrug life.

[jmfunnyface]

I was reading my mom part of my (academic) book that I have a contract for, and she goes, "I know you love this stuff, honey, but you'd make a lot more money if you wrote erotica."

[rubie_dubidoux]

that's the part that amazes me - like, everyone involved in this is very much aware that this whole thing is about Harry Styles, right? how did this many people manage to do their jobs with a straight face to get this made? what was the casting process like - did they just test all the potential lead actors to see who reminded them the most of Harry Styles? (bc tbh they did a pretty good job at that part, at least to a casual observer lol. isn't Harry's whole appeal his tattoos, swishy hair, and slow Northern accent?)

[koushiba]

This is the most mind boggling thing to me. Everyone just accepts that this was based of an actual person.