Script Excerpt: A Long Nitehox Tangent That Was Trimmed (Patreon)

A lot of my writing process is just writing long, aimless scenes in dialogue, to get my brain going, and then later going back and picking out the structure that I can glean from that. This results in a lot of long bits of dialogue that do not make it into the script. This particular snippet got REALLY long, because I didn't really know how I was going to structure Nitehox at all when I started.

This lo-ong snippet starts to go down a tangent where Arizona goes missing and the characters have to find him. Because of the dialogue-driven nature of my drafts, I've included some additional commentary [in brackets] to clarify actions that I intended to be there, but that I didn't explicitly write down. It also refers to a character named "Neil", which is just the character "Craig" from the final script. I changed his name because I realized introducing "Neil" and "Diamond" in the same story sounded like a Neil Diamond joke.

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[The scene opens with all the characters packed into the kitchen, separated from the restaurant seating by the order window, which is covered in aluminum blinds.] NEIL parts the blinds and is like, goddamn.

NEIL: Goddamn! Abby look at this!

ABERFALLOW: Goddamn

NEIL: This is like the second worst monster I've ever seen in the restaurant

KAY: There've been worse?

DIAMOND: Pfft, they're talking about my ex boyfriend.

KAY: You dated a monster?

DIAMOND: No, I-- yeah, yes. Let's move on.

KAY: Hey guys? I don't hear it anymore, do you?

Shake heads no. Kay looks up to check.

KAY: Hey guys I think--

She notices a customer missing. [I originally planned for there to be an extra character in the diner, established at the beginning, who got eaten, which is what this part is about.]

KAY: Wasn't there a guy there before?

SUDDENLY THE MONSTER APPEARS, JUMPSCARE!
KAY FALLS BACKWARDS WHOOPSO!

DIAMOND: What happened?

KAY: Nothing.
I think it ate somebody

NEIL: Well, which is it
Was it nothing or did it eat somebody

ARIZONA [whispering to himself hopefully]: The former the former the former

KAY: The latter.

ARIZONA: Dammit.

KAY: There's gotta be an escape route in here, right? Like, fire safety?

DIAMOND: We're in space, so, they seal the place up pretty good.

ARIZONA: We could hide in the freezer until we pass out

ABERFALLOW: With all the meat? No thank you, that's prime monster bait.

NEIL: Could we distract it with meat? Like, throw it out there to throw it off?

DIAMOND: What if that just makes it look to us for MORE food?

NEIL: It's a restaurant, isn't it?

DIAMOND: Legally, I think.

KAY: Hey, what happened to Arizona?

UH-OH! [They look around and notice that Arizona is suddenly missing! Kay wanders off on her own into the back hallways looking for him.]

KAY: ARIZONA!!

DIAMOND: Shh-hh, hey, kid, don't yell!!

KAY: ARIZONA!!

DIAMOND: Kid, you can't just wander around in the dark back there!

KAY pulls a flashlight from her pocket. [It is a goofy looking flashlight like from a happy meal or something.]

KAY: On my planet, this is in no way demeaning.

DIAMOND: Well let me show you around, at least.

KAY: He's probably hiding in a bathroom or something.

DIAMOND: I know all the hiding spots back here.

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That appears to be where I gave up on this story thread and went back to the beginning.