Domino is a series of tiles with one or more dots. Each domino is normally twice as wide as it is thick, making them easy to stack and re-stack in a variety of ways. The size of each dot is usually marked with a number ranging from six pips to none or blank, known as a rank or weight. The value of a domino is determined by its rank and weight. Dominoes are used to play positional games where each player in turn places a tile edge to edge against another such that the adjacent sides match or form a certain total.
A good story is like a set of dominoes that come together to create a beautiful and seamless structure. When all the scenes are laid out in an order that leads to a climax, the effect is smooth and engaging. When the story has hiccups and holes, it loses momentum. Whether you use a detailed outline or the more fluid pantsing process, it’s important to consider how each scene connects to the scene before and after it. If your story has a series of scenes that don’t work well together, the reader will get frustrated and stop reading.
In the early days of Domino’s, a key strategy was listening to customers and responding quickly. The company’s founder, Dominick Monaghan, started with a small location in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and put an emphasis on getting pizza to people quickly by placing the shops near universities. The company’s focus on listening to customers is a core value that continues today.
When Hevesh builds her mind-blowing domino setups, she follows a version of the engineering design process. She starts by considering the theme or purpose of her creation and brainstorming images or words that could help her convey that idea.
Hevesh then considers the structure of her set and the space available to build it. She then creates a domino diagram to visualize the arrangement of her pieces. Once she has a diagram, she begins to build the actual dominoes.
While the actual construction of a domino chain is largely random, Hevesh says she tries to keep the overall shape of the chain snake-like, as opposed to an even diagonal line. She also pays attention to the way in which the tiles touch each other, especially when a double is played to a non-double.
When the first domino falls, it converts its potential energy to kinetic energy, which provides the push needed to knock over the next domino. This energy then moves on to the next domino, and so on until the last domino is knocked over. This is how a domino chain develops, and it is what makes the game so fun.
