The Good, the Bad, and the WTF?

When outlining a story, you start with the basics. You have your characters, their problem, and the solution. That's how it works. But what's in between is the fun stuff. You have good guys, bad guys, and then those questionable people. No one does this better than the Whedons. From Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Dollhouse to Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., you can expect one thing: You never know what to trust. This is what keeps such a devoted following. The eye candy helps, don't get me wrong. (Brett Dalton, if you're reading this, I swear I'm not trying to objectify you.)

You could easily write a story about a knight saving a princess and getting a happily ever after. But we've all heard that. What about the story where the princess is really a clone of a cyborg engineered zombie and the knight is a mutation of a lizard and really wants to bring the princess to his lair for his evil master?

Okay, that's a little crazy. But you get my point.

Predictable is boring. Keep your reader/watcher guessing. That's the key to a truly good story.