Have you ever witnessed the domino effect in person or seen it on TV? The beauty of this system lies in its rhythmic cascading motion – similar to how nerve impulses travel along an axon. Each time a domino falls, its message travels downhill until reaching another domino which triggers its own cascade and so forth.
A domino (also referred to as a bone, card, men or pieces) is a small rectangular wooden or plastic block resembling dice that is either blank on one face or marked with dots similar to dice on both faces. Used for playing various board and card games with two or more players; its stock consists of tiles each bearing different values based on color and number of dots on their edges.
Every player begins by holding several tiles in his hand and drawing from a stock as dictated by game rules. He then plays each tile he draws into his hand – with dominoes taking precedence if single- or double-dominos are drawn from that stock – adding them to their hand as soon as they become available; in general, heavy tiles (i.e. heaviest domino) in that hand must be played first to initiate play unless certain rules specify otherwise; high-ranking doubles may start play instead.
Once a domino has been played, its adjacent tiles become part of an expanding chain that spans across the table until reaching its conclusion. Each new tile added must touch one end of its predecessor; matching ends are usually distinguished by color while values ranging from six pips down to none or blank are also noted on each side of each domino tile.
As the domino chain develops, each player must strategize in order to remain in the game; otherwise they risk having to “chip out”, giving way to another player and starting fresh.
Writing Tip for Today
The Domino Effect provides an effective metaphor for novel writing. No matter whether you prefer pantsing without outlining or Scrivener plotting, its concept applies to every scene that’s written – each scene must fit seamlessly into the structure of the whole, while influencing any subsequent scenes through some mechanism.
Write scenes that adhere to logic of character motivations or social norms for optimal storytelling results. Otherwise, readers could reject your hero and be put off from reading further. To prevent this, provide an indisputable argument as to why your hero acts this way – otherwise readers might struggle with accepting his/her actions and dropping the story altogether.