This Post Contains SEXY SPOILERS for 'Friends', 'Who's the Boss?', 'Wings', and the 'Harry Potter' Book Series

When Friends started airing on NBC, it became a real game-changer for episodic television. On Friends, you had six attractive young people who could be paired up romantically any way you wanted, with the exception of Ross and Monica who were brother and sister. The show gave us Ross/Rachel and Chandler/Monica of course, but also played with Joey/Rachel, Phoebe/Joey, Phoebe/Ross, Joey/Monica, etc. etc.

This sounds like an obvious technique because it is so common now, but earlier shows didn't have this dynamic. On Who's the Boss?, the only two characters that could get together were Tony and Angela. On Wings in the original cast there was really only Joe, Helen, and Brian. You would never see Antonio hooking up with Fay or Roy seducing Helen. Shows were not created with such loose premises.

Now let's talk about how this idea can bleed into other types of stories, outside of the small screen.

This technique can easily be applied to other forms of episodic storytelling. Any story that continues for a very long time is perfect for this sort of dynamic. Look at the Harry Potter books. There were countless relationships spawned during the seven volumes that could not have been predicted early on, but rang true nonetheless. For four books, readers wondered if Hermione loved Harry or Ron. In Chamber of Secrets, no one could have guessed that Harry would end up with Ginny Weasley. There was Fleur and Bill who hadn't even appeared on the page together before they started dating. Also Hermione/Viktor, Harry/Cho, Ron/Lavender...

Superhero comic books have been applying this technique forever. Superheroes are always smokin' hot, making it easy to pair them off in countless ways.

Here's a novel idea, though. Or maybe not, but I just thought of it. Use this approach in your short format stories, too. Your plays and novels and short stories and screenplays. I don't mean that you should actually cram all these hook-ups and break-ups into a short story. But your story will be operating on multiple levels if your reader thinks it could happen.

Phoebe could make out with Joey. Harry could fall in love with Hermione. Your protagonist could fall for their best friend, or their best friend's boyfriend, or their boyfriend's best friend.

When you have a variety of sexy, single characters thrown together - that's the kind of work that makes people write fan fiction. And who doesn't want that?

6-way orgy? It could have happened...