Shivering Heap

South Lab not heated. Two Hour Class. Twelve degrees celcius. Not a good start to a Monday morning.

That class, Scene Study, uses excerpts from a book called Backwards and Forwards. It's a neat book, talking about how action works. It uses the terms Triggers and Heaps. The prof didn't explain this to the class, but from previous experience I know that the story behind those terms is that when I pull the trigger of a gun pointed at you, you fall to the floor in a heap. Kind of funny. But it doesn't distinguish between staus quo and conflict. That bothers me. Events, actions and beats, kinda like notes, harmonies and phrases, are useful things, but don't express a lot. The thing that bugs me most, though, is that a great deal of conflict occurs when the triggers and heaps rule goes wrong. The intended heap isn't achieved, either because nothing happens or because something else happens. I'm trying to find a way to incorporate both concepts into a nice, balanced, inclusive concept. So far I'm not having any luck, possibly because I had crispy chicken curry for lunch and now have unpleasant heartburn. Boo unpleasant heartburn.