If you ever wondered what Chewbacca and Han Solo really did together, all those lonely nights aboard the Millennium Falcon, then fan fiction might be for you.
—Jennifer Granick, "Scotty, Beam Down the Lawyers!",> Wired Magazine, October 9, 1997

A number of writers Pocket Books has published since 1984 come out of the fan community. While fan writers are pleased to be paid for their work, the move has caused serious debate. The very nature of commercial publishing is antithetical to the forms and structures of fan fiction. Pocket Books requires its ''Star Trek'' writers to return all characters to the status quo by the end of each book. The restriction reasonably excludes stories that end with the deaths of central characters, but it also means that children, wives, lovers must be eliminated or left behind by the final chapter. For the same reason characters cannot learn from their mistakes and grow.
—Camille Bacon-Smith, "Spock among the women," The New York Times, November 16, 1986