One Night Only is a cheeky new rom-com with a hilariously startling premise: In this version of America, premarital sex is outlawed (egads!). Luckily, there is a loophole — one night a year, unmarrieds are allowed to legally fornicate and boy, do they. In fact, it's become a bit of a cottage industry where alcohol and condoms are subject to surge pricing. It's on this boozy, hormonally charged night we find our protagonists, Allie (Monica Barbara) and Owen (Callum Turner), ready to get busy if they can only meet the right person.
Written by Travis Braun, One Night Only is a sexy yet heartfelt romp into the world of modern dating, just with a few restrictions. But years before Travis Braun wrote One Night Only, he was a journalism student who dreamed of going to film school.
"I applied to all of them. I did not get into any of them," he says. "There was a part of me where I was like, 'Is this a sign that maybe I shouldn't do this?' Because I literally got rejected from every film school."
After graduating from Franklin College in Indiana with a journalism degree, he worked internships at USA Today and ABC World News. But reporting wasn't the kind of writing that inspired him. He wanted to flex his creativity, so he decided to write a TV spec script.
"It was of The Office," Braun laughs. "It was one of the worst scripts ever written. And I was like, I want to do this. This is fun. I don't know how to do it, but I want to do it."
Who Needs Film School?
Braun decided to make the jump to Los Angeles and see if the writing gods would smile on him. Like many aspiring writers, he started as a production assistant before becoming a writers' PA and eventually script coordinator on Criminal Minds. Looking back, he considers those years more valuable than a traditional graduate program.
"It was kind of like my MFA in screenwriting. A very discounted version of it where they're actually paying me," he says. But the best part was that he spent every day watching professional television writers work. "I got to be around eight professional writers and realize, 'Oh, I was nowhere near the level that I needed to be to do this professionally.' That was a big wake-up call."
That education eventually led to the Nickelodeon Writing Program, followed by a decade writing for Disney, including Vampirina and multiple original series. He's currently adapting Pixar's Cars for television. As much as he loves working in family entertainment, Braun still felt he was capable of more.
"I needed that thing that's just for me," he says. "No studio, no network, no one's telling me to write this. I'm not doing it for any actor. I'm not doing it for anything except reminding myself of the pure joy of writing and why we got into this in the first place."
That freedom allowed him to chase an idea simply because it excited him. "It's crazy that we're sitting here today and it's getting released."
Start with a Problem, Then Build the Premise
Braun didn't begin with the movie's outrageous hook. "I wanted to write a story about modern dating and how that experience feels."
Modern dating, however, can be exhausting if you think about getting on the apps and trying to find relationship material. It can take years. So he asked a better question: How could he compress everything frustrating, awkward, and exciting about dating into a single night?
"I wanted to put modern dating into a box. All of the bad behavior of modern dating crammed into one night, only it would be accelerated."
The premise is immediately understandable, creates endless comic possibilities, and naturally generates conflict before the audience has even met the protagonists.
Don't Get Lost in Exposition
One of Braun's favorite moments in the finished film actually happens before the story really begins. Rather than spending pages explaining the political history of this alternate America, the screenplay delivers the central premise in a super on screen that reads: Three years ago, premarital sex became illegal. A second super reads: Except for one night a year.
He cleverly included this info in his script to speak directly to the reader. "Those are the first two pages of the Blacklist script. Page one says, 'In the near future, premarital sex is outlawed in America,' and then the next page was the cover page, and then the third page was, 'Except for one night a year.'"
It was an easy way to do a lot of world-building and not bore the readers. Sometimes the simplest exposition is the most effective. "I love coming up with some crazy premise and just getting the audience to buy into it as quickly as possible so you can play in that world."
Character First, Genre Second
Despite writing a romantic comedy, Braun says he never consciously chased rom-com conventions. Instead, he focused on authenticity. "I didn't know enough about the tropes to consciously avoid them or fall into them."
So it made sense to focus primarily on the characters. "How do I tell the most authentic story about these two characters in this world?"
Whenever he became stuck, he returned to a question based on his own lived experiences. "What is the honest thing that would happen in this scene? How would this character actually behave here?" Rather than writing toward expected romantic comedy beats, Braun let the characters dictate the story.
"I never consciously tried to write toward or away from something," he says. "I just tried to honor what I thought were the most real scenes."
Trust Your Attention Span
One of the biggest structural challenges involved balancing the journeys of both leads. Early drafts experimented with having the pair together almost constantly. Other versions kept them separated until the very end, closer to Sleepless in Seattle. Eventually Braun found the rhythm instinctively.
"All gut," he says, adding, "I think I have a really short attention span. If I'm feeling bored writing something, the audience is already extremely bored."
That internal alarm tells him when scenes go on too long. "I'm always trying to think, is there a way to get out of the scene quicker?" It's simple advice, but it helps the story move.
Best Career Advice
Braun's advice to writers is simple: Write what you're passionate about. "It's very easy to get distracted in this business and follow a trend or write something you think a studio is going to like. But then you see a trailer drop for your exact movie because someone else did that already."
His solution is both creative and practical. "The only thing you can do is write what you love."
If readers feel that joy on the page, it's likely audiences will too.
One Night Only was written on Final Draft and opens in theaters Aug. 7.