To Write Dominion "Derived Fiction" and not Fanfiction

[djo]

Originally Posted by raven013

Why in the hell would a professional writer even bother writing fanfiction?

Case in point: Steven Brust, author of the "Vlad Taltos" series of novels and a better-than-fair writer of fantasy, wrote a "Firefly" fanfic. Were it "Star Trek" or "Star Wars" instead of "Firefly", possibly he could have written an authorized novel instead (which is the other reason a professional author would write fanfiction, they're getting paid for it, and I would say that authorized novels in a given universe are pretty much professional fan fiction). But Brust wrote a Firefly (short) Firefly novel anyway, because he loved the characters and the universe.