Aug. 18 (UPI) — The fan fiction genre has undergone an enemies-to-lovers story arc of its own.
Once largely dismissed by the literary world, writing that reimagines existing franchises, characters and stories has become highly sought after by publishers.
One such example is “Dramione,” a subgenre of Harry Potter fan fiction that dreams up various situations in which adversaries Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger fall in love.
In August, Barnes & Noble devoted a table to two recent “Dramione”-inspired releases — Rose in Chains by Julie Soto and The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy by Brigitte Knightley — dubbing 2025 “The Year of ‘Dramione.'”
“These books are based on the classic fan-fiction works that shaped the ‘enemies to lovers’ trope to be what it is today,” the sign read.
A third title, Alchemised, penned by SenLin Yu, hits bookshelves Sept. 23.
‘Dramione’ takes center stage
The writing platform Archive of Our Own, better known as AO3, has half a million entries related to Harry Potter.
Rose in Chains, released July 2, originated as the fan fiction The Auction on the site. That story followed Hermione after she was sold to Draco amid the Death Eaters’ victory over Hogwarts.
Its wild popularity prompted the book adaptation, The Washington Post reported.
“It just always comes back to Pride and Prejudice,” Soto told the outlet. “This sense of two people who are intrinsically different and do not understand each other but perhaps feel connected or attracted to each other.”
Roshni Radi, who helms Spotify’s audiobooks editorial team, explained the allure of a romantic relationship between Hermione and Draco in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar.
“Draco has this redemptive arc; he changes from the person he was in the books to this new person that Hermione can love. She sees something in him that us as readers need time to see. This is him very clearly acknowledging he’s wrong, and then he makes amends, and there is something really intoxicating about a character who’s willing to completely accept that and change and be different,” she told the publication.
The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy, meanwhile, was already been in the works when an agent reached out to Knightley regarding her AO3 piece Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love.
She told The Washington Post that Irresistible, which follows a blooming love between an assassin and a healer, is the online narrative’s “spiritual successor.”
“People in the publishing industry tend to like to read and so a lot of them are fans and read fan fiction,” Rebecca Tushnet, a member of AO3’s legal committee told UPI.
Fanfic goes mainstream
Many popular contemporary books originated in the online fanfic space, including the well-known Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James. The book, published in 2011, originated as a Twilight fan fiction story, Master of the Universe.
In James’ telling, Twilight’s Edward Cullen and Bella Swan were transformed into the erotic novel’s billionaire Christian Grey and college student Anastasia Steele. James went on to publish three more volumes based on the characters — Fifty Shades Darker (2011), Fifty Shades Freed (2012) and Grey (2015).
Her books inspired the films starring Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan. The first feature ranked No. 1 in the domestic box office two weekends in a row.
Another Twilight fan fiction story to be reimagined into a standalone novel is Beautiful Bastard by Christina Lauren, released in 2015. The fan fiction was titled The Office and accumulated some 2 million views.
Anna Todd’s After book series was inspired by a piece of fan fiction about Harry Styles of One Direction fame. The original story, published on Wattpad, has accumulated 725 million views.
“Tessa Young is an 18 year old college student with a simple life, excellent grades and a sweet boyfriend,” the official synopsis reads. “She always has things planned out ahead of time, until she meets a rude boy named Hardin, with too many tattoos and piercings who shatters her plans.”
The After books were also adapted for film.
Ali Hazelwood’s 2021 debut novel, The Love Hypothesis, is being adapted into a film starring Lili Reinhart and Tom Bateman. The story was conceived from the Star Wars-based fan fiction Head Over Feet about Rey and Kylo Ren, which fans call “Reylo.”
“Fanfiction is just an amazing medium,” Hazelwood told Collider. “It’s great… to find your voice, to explore things that you usually don’t find in traditional publishing. But it’s also just great to feel a sense of community and to get to know people, to find someone who’s like-minded and interested in similar things. It’s very hard to make friends as an adult. And I feel like I truly found my adult friends through fanfiction and through the fandom community.”
Soto, who has also transformed a “Reylo”-based fan fiction into Forget Me Not, echoed that gratitude for the community inherent in fandom.
“‘It means a lot to me that the culture of fan fiction of like, ‘Oh my god, this thing ruined me for 48 hours. I haven’t been able to stop crying. I hate it. I hate everyone in it. I hate myself. I hate the author. Please read this,'” she told Swoon.
“The intense emotions of, I’ve been vomiting about this fan fiction. You have to read it — that kind of community of sharing (is) what makes us giddy, what makes us really intense in fandom, that’s kind of transitioning to BookTok and transitioning to Bookstagram,” she added.
Perhaps the passion inherent in these spaces is why publishers are taking notice, too.
“It’s just a very special moment, because finally these fans have an outlet to give back in this really tangible way that they did not have before — to support authors who are now, in the case of SenLin Yu and me as debuts, trying this new career path to see where this could lead,” Knightley told Harpers Bazaar.
But the value in fan fiction writing extends well beyond the potential for publication, Tushnet said.
“To me, it’s never about making the jump to getting paid for it,” she said. “People develop all sorts of skills and passions and connections through fan fiction and I would never want to flatten that.”
“As long as there are humans, they will ask what happens next,” she said. “The fight we have is their ability to find each other.”