If you’ve ever watched a dominoes expert set up thousands of tiny individual pieces, then you know that each one is delicate and takes quite a bit of effort to place just right. The physics of each piece also dictates that once it’s in its final position, it will remain there until some outside force nudges it over. This is known as the “domino effect.” The same principle can apply to plotting a novel, which often requires an author to carefully consider each reaction and how it will influence what happens next.
Domino
A domino is any of 28 small, oblong rectangular blocks marked with an arrangement of dots, called pips, on each side. They are used to play a game of strategy and chance, where players place them edge-to-edge on a rail in such a way that the adjacent faces match either in number or some other specified total. The resulting line of falling dominoes is then used to score points in the game. The pips on the ends of a domino can also be colored differently to identify them, and many people collect and use the pieces for artistic purposes.
Dominoes are commonly made from wood, although plastic is also now available. They come in a variety of colors and designs, from straight and curved lines to grids that form pictures when they fall, and even 3D structures like towers and pyramids. Dominoes can be purchased at toy stores or online. Some people even make their own by purchasing or constructing a track and then placing the dominoes on it.
The earliest records of dominoes date back to the mid-18th century in Italy and France. In English, the word domino first appeared in print around 1750. An earlier sense of the word denoted a long hooded cloak worn with a mask at a masquerade, and it is likely that the name of the game derived from this usage.
When most people think of a domino, they think of the fanciful constructions that can be made by an expert in the field. For example, the YouTube star Lily Hevesh has built rainbow spirals and a domino maze that took two weeks to complete. Hevesh started playing with dominoes when she was 9 years old and now spends about 20 hours a week creating her amazing creations.
Hevesh’s most important lesson when she’s working with a new project is that the forces of inertia can be overcome with a little nudge. When an individual domino has been placed just right, all it takes is a slight nudge for it to fall over and trigger the chain reaction that brings everything else down with it.