by If you’ve ever watched someone line up dominoes in long rows, then knock them over, you know how satisfying it is to see a chain of them fall down until the last one crashes into the floor. But what is the domino effect, and how do we use it in our lives?
A domino is a small, oblong block that bears an identifying mark on one side and is blank or identically patterned on the other. The term is also used for any of the many games played with such blocks, in which players place them edge to edge, forming lines and angular patterns, or in positional games that require finding and placing a domino in a way that matches its value to those of other dominoes already on the board. A set usually contains 28 pieces.
Dominos are often used in art and architecture. They are used to create asymmetrical shapes and can be made from a variety of materials. Some of the most famous examples include the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Alhambra, and the Taj Mahal.
In addition to traditional blocking and scoring games, there are several other ways to play with dominoes, including solitaire and trick-taking. Some of these games were once popular as a way to circumvent religious prohibitions against playing cards.
Most modern domino sets are made of polymer, a material that is durable and inexpensive to manufacture. But historically, sets were made of a number of different materials, including bone (particularly the silver lip ocean pearl oyster shell, or mother of pearl), ivory, and ebony, which are more expensive but have a richer look and feel to them. In recent times, some sets have been made of ceramic clay or even frosted glass.
If you’re a writer who writes by the seat of your pants, or doesn’t make detailed outlines ahead of time with a program like Scrivener, you may end up with scenes that don’t fit well together, or don’t have enough logical impact on those that came before them. Using the domino effect, you can weed out those unnecessary or repetitive scenes and improve your story’s overall flow.
When a domino falls, most of its potential energy converts to kinetic energy and is transmitted to the next domino, providing a push that causes it to fall. As each successive domino falls, more of its potential energy is transferred to the next one until it too topples over. Eventually, all the potential energy is converted to kinetic energy and the whole domino chain collapses.
For writers, the domino effect is a concept that helps us keep track of our tasks and ensure we complete all of them in order. By analyzing the process of how we accomplished our work in the past, we can apply the same principles to help us be more productive in the future. By identifying our most important task, or “domino,” we can focus on that first to get the ball rolling. Then, by building upon that one achievement, we can achieve more in the same way that a large chain of dominoes topple over until they all fall.
