There’s a goat in a life jacket, a lobster boat tied to a stop sign, and five friends standing in the wreckage.
Then we rewind to find out how they got there.
A Final Draft Big Break reader had two suggestions for my comedy, No Tomorrow: give the audience more reason to root for Danny, my immature lead, and get to the dam breaking sooner.
More time with Danny. Less time before the flood.
Great. I’ll just develop his emotional complexity while the town washes away.
The reader particularly wanted more reason to care about Danny’s relationship with his girlfriend, Maddie. The question is how much time to spend developing that relationship before the dam breaks, and what that time gives the audience.
Adding more character detail might help. It might also leave everyone waiting for the goat.
Give the addition an actual job
In the earlier draft, Danny is playing Madden in his man cave. Blank save-the-date cards sit on a table. A garment bag hangs nearby, gathering dust.
Maddie later tells him she feels they’ve been stuck for two years.
He has just farted when she walks in. She brushes dust off the garment bag, revealing a tuxedo, and tells him:
“I adore you. I really do.”
“But this version of you? It’s not working anymore.”
Danny responds with a joke about the smell of love.
Not exactly a compelling argument for why Maddie should stick around.
The reader suggested showing a time when their relationship was good, possibly through a scene set in the past.
That was one solution. But before adding another scene, I wanted to see what I could accomplish inside the one I already had.
In the revision, Maddie rubs her bare arm. Danny notices, turns his desk fan away from her, and returns to Madden.
Then Maddie straightens a photograph of them outside a castle.
“You told me we were going to brunch.”
“There was breakfast on the plane.”
She fights a smile. Loses.
Then she notices the garment bag, and we’re right back to the problem.
I haven’t magically transformed Danny into a man who journals about his emotional availability. He’s still playing Madden.
The dusty tuxedo and blank cards help explain Maddie’s frustration. The fan and photograph try to show what she still loves about him. Same relationship, different information.
“Give the character more depth” sounds wonderful. But if I can’t identify what a new moment helps the audience understand, I might just be adding pages because I like the scene.
Sometimes the beagle can do the talking
Later, Maddie warns Danny against repeating last July Fourth, when he woke up naked on the lawn. She threatens the sprinklers and hopes Gary the beagle shits on him.
Romance has taken a turn.
They look toward the window, where Gary is staring in. In the earlier draft, Danny’s friend Travis explains:
“Gary fucking hates you.”
Danny agrees.
“He really does.”
In the revision, Danny gives Gary a little wave.
Gary bares his teeth.
Message received.
Two lines of explanation became a visual exchange. The dog handles his own character introduction.
That doesn’t prove the moment will play faster. The wave and reaction take time, too. What changes is how we learn about the relationship: we watch it happen.
Before adding another conversation, I can ask whether an action might do its job.
That doesn’t mean every line of dialogue should disappear. I’m writing a comedy. People saying ridiculous things is fairly important to the operation.
But if the audience already understands the joke, having another character explain it probably isn’t helping.
Count the pages. Then question what they’re telling you.
Later in the opening, Danny calls his friend Mark to get him to join them that night. We cut to Mark driving with his wife and children.
That cut happens on page ten in the earlier PDF and page eleven in the revision.
That doesn’t mean the new character beats added an entire page. The documents differ in formatting and page breaks.
I can’t blame the desk fan for everything.
I also cut some repetition. Danny loses “Stuck for two years.” His friend still warns him against taking drugs, but skips “You just said she’s mad about the loop.”
Twelve words gone. Hardly a miracle cure for pacing, but at least I’m not exclusively adding material.
A cleaner page comparison needs consistent formatting and the same story landmarks.
Where does Maddie’s warning fall? Her departure for her sister’s? The call to Mark?
What has been added, replaced, or removed between them? And does the extra material make the next moment more meaningful?
Page count can tell me where to investigate. It can’t tell me whether the scene is working.
Make the new detail defend itself
Here’s how I plan to decide whether these changes deserve to stay.
First, remove the new moment.
Read through the next important choice. What becomes less clear? What emotional information disappears?
If nothing changes, perhaps the addition isn’t doing enough.
Next, put it back.
Does the scene gain something meaningful? Or have you created another problem?
For example, make Danny too considerate and Maddie’s frustration starts looking less justified.
Congratulations. I’ve improved one character by making another look unreasonable.
Finally, give the pages to someone who doesn’t already know what you’re trying to accomplish.
Don’t explain the desk fan. Don’t point out the photograph. Don’t announce that you’ve made Danny more sympathetic.
Ask what they understand about the relationship, which moments gave them that impression, and where their attention started drifting.
I haven’t tested these revised pages with fresh readers yet. I know what I intended the additions to accomplish, but that doesn’t mean they accomplished it.
Writers can be remarkably persuasive when explaining why their own scenes work.
The pages don’t get to bring us along to explain ourselves.
The dam still has to break
Making the relationship clearer and reaching the dam break sooner are separate jobs. These changes attempt the first. The second needs a look across the whole opening, including what can be replaced or removed.
That includes the emotional moments, the introductions, the banter, and the jokes I think are absolutely brilliant.
Especially those jokes, apparently.
Making the wait more rewarding won’t necessarily make it shorter. Cutting it shorter won’t necessarily make us care more. I need to judge both.
Sometimes that requires another beat. Sometimes it means replacing an explanation with an action. And sometimes a scene I love hasn’t earned the time it takes.
That’s the question I’ll carry into the next revision: what does this moment give the audience that they wouldn’t have without it?
The fan and photograph are attempts to earn that space. Fresh readers will help me judge whether they do.
Gary?
Gary needed one look.
Evan McDaniel is a screenwriter, writer, and founder of Northward Stone, where he creates practical tools and resources that help writers overcome obstacles and keep their stories moving forward. His original screenplay The Fighting Irish was a quarterfinalist in the 2026 Final Draft Big Break Screenwriting Contest. He is currently pursuing an MA in English and Creative Writing with a concentration in Screenwriting at Southern New Hampshire University.
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