Domino is a game that involves arranging small rectangular pieces of cardboard or hard plastic on the floor in long lines. Each piece bears an arrangement of dots-called pips-on one side, and is blank or identically patterned on the other. A domino is one of many kinds of game piece and can be used for various games in place of dice, playing cards or other objects.
Each domino has a number of dots on the end that correspond to its value in the game, or suit. Usually, the ends of a domino belong to one of six suits-ones, twos, threes, fours, fives and sixes-but some may have an alternating pattern of spots or be blank. Those that have an alternating pattern are considered wild and can be ascribed a value of their own, independent of any other piece on the board. The most common type of domino commercially available is a double six set with 28 tiles, although larger sets exist.
The game of domino became popular in the early 18th Century and was a favorite fad throughout Europe. By the late 19th Century, it had reached China. A state official, Kao Tsung, is credited with standardizing the game in China.
Some people arrange a domino into shapes, and others play simple layout games where they place a domino on the table, then match its end to another one that has matching points or is a multiple of some other value. Those with more imagination can even create a domino landscape. For example, the art of Hevesh has created impressive domino structures that take several nail-biting minutes for all the dominoes to fall in the correct order.
Domino can also be a metaphor for writing. When you write a story, it’s important to keep in mind the domino effect-the sequence of events that leads from a single action to its consequences, or, in writing terms, its logical next step. If your scenes don’t logically connect to the scene that follows them, you may find that your reader loses interest in your work.
This is true whether you compose your manuscript off the cuff, as a “pantser,” or use a writing tool such as Scrivener to help you outline and organize your work. Regardless of your style, you need to make sure that your scenes logically lead where your plot tells them to go. If you do, readers will be interested in what happens next and how your story progresses. They will be able to see the domino effect, and that is what makes for compelling reading.