When a domino falls, it has potential energy that converts to kinetic energy—the energy of motion. Some of that kinetic energy is transmitted to the next domino, giving it the push it needs to fall. This continues until the last domino has fallen and the entire chain has collapsed. Hevesh has created mind-blowing domino setups for movies, TV shows, and events (including an album launch for Katy Perry). She works on these projects with teams of people and it takes several nail-biting minutes for the largest displays to fully complete. Hevesh’s designs are based on themes or ideas, and she brainstorms images and words that may be relevant. Once the design is finalized, she starts putting it together. She follows a version of the engineering-design process—considering how the pieces will fit together, creating prototypes, and experimenting with different layouts.
Domino is a generic term used to describe any action that causes other actions to follow. It can also refer to a game played with a set of small rectangular wood or plastic blocks, each bearing a number of dots resembling those on dice. These dominoes are generally 28 in number, although there are larger sets available.
A variety of games can be played with these dominoes, including blocking and scoring games. The most common way to play a domino game is to place one domino edge-to-edge against another so that the adjacent faces are identical or form some specified total. Depending on the particular game, some dominoes have pips or other markings that identify them, while others are blank or use Arabic numerals to allow for easier recognition.
The theory of the domino effect is that the fall of a single country will lead to the collapse of many other countries in a wave that eventually spreads around the world. A version of this theory was used to justify U.S. support for the anti-communist Ngo Dinh Diem regime in Vietnam in 1961 and 1963. In the famous 1977 Frost/Nixon interviews, Richard Nixon defended his destabilization of the Salvador Allende regime in Chile on domino theory grounds by arguing that a Communist Chile and Cuba would create a “red sandwich” entangling Latin America between them.
As a writer, it can be helpful to think of your novel’s plot as a series of scene dominoes that lead to the final climax. As you work through your outline, consider each scene to be a domino that must connect logically to the scene that comes after it. Check each scene to make sure that the emotional beats that occur logically flow into the one after it, and that the scene is influencing the next in a meaningful way. Whether you write off the cuff or spend time outlining your book, thinking of your scenes as dominoes can help keep your story on track and prevent you from falling off the edge.
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