A domino is a small rectangular tile with a pattern of spots or pips on one side and blank or identically patterned on the other. A domino can be played with alone or in combination with other tiles to form a sequence of actions that culminate in one piece knocking over another. The term may also refer to a chain reaction, which is a set of events that follow one another like dominoes and influence each other. The concept of a domino effect is also used in physics to describe a system that is self-perpetuating.
Dominos are not only fun to play with, but they can teach us about the nature of a domino effect. The beauty of a domino effect is that the effect begins with just one small event and can lead to the occurrence of many other things. The process can be seen with a simple line of dominoes or more elaborate constructions such as a castle or wall of bricks. The same principle can be applied to our writing. Each scene of a story acts as one of those small dominoes, and the success of that scene depends on its timing and how it connects with the scene that comes after it.
Whether you plot your novel off the cuff or carefully follow an outline, the basic task of a writer is to build a chain of scenes that will eventually bring the hero to his or her goal. Scenes in a story are the dominoes, and the success of the plot depends on the sequence of those dominoes and how they logically progress or shift according to the emotional state of the hero at that point in time.
The domino effect can be illustrated with the help of an experiment conducted by University of British Columbia physicist Lorne Wildenstein in 1983. This experiment demonstrated that a single domino, even one as small as 2 inches tall, can knock over another domino that is one and a half times larger than itself. This is because as the first domino falls, much of its potential energy is converted to kinetic energy, which is transmitted to the next domino in the line and gives it the push that causes it to fall. The effect continues until the last domino, if it is big enough, crashes into and knocks over the final domino in the row.
Domino artists use these principles to create a wide variety of mind-blowing displays. They can build straight lines, curved lines, grids that form pictures when they fall, stacked walls and even 3D structures such as pyramids. To achieve their impressive results, they follow a version of the engineering-design process, which is very similar to how Hevesh sets up her dominoes. She tests each section of her setups to make sure they work individually before putting them all together. This allows her to correct any mishaps and ensure that the final display works perfectly.