Writing With Dominoes
Dominoes (commonly referred to as bones, men, pieces or cards) are gaming objects consisting of rectangular blocks made from either rigid material like wood or bone and often coated in colored paint or plastic to enhance their visual appeal. Dominoes can be found used in numerous board and card games for either blocking or scoring purposes.
Dominoes resemble playing cards in that both sides feature distinctive markings; similar to how playing cards have playing card faces with identification marks on both sides, typically arranged according to suit; these markings could include dots (also called pip) or Arabic numerals. Most domino sets consist of 28 tiles but larger sets exist for use in games requiring large quantities or long chains.
Dominoes hold a special place in many hearts around the globe – be it to play games, create designs or craft works of art. From stacking straight or curved lines, grids that form pictures when they fall and towers and pyramids; dominoes have long held onto this position in hearts everywhere.
These small squares of clay can help writers craft scenes that come together like dominoes in an enjoyable narrative, without readers becoming distracted or disoriented by any gaps in logic or action. The trick to creating such scenes lies in timing and spacing out: scenes should advance the plot (move it closer or farther away from its goal), yet must not feel too rushed during key moments such as discovering something or plot points.
For example, when characters act contrary to what most readers would consider reasonable behavior, the domino effect quickly unravels. To maintain interest from audiences for such stories, authors need to provide enough motivation or excuses for such immoral acts on behalf of protagonists; otherwise audiences might become disenchanted with them and stop liking their protagonist.
Writing a story requires the same principles: you need to craft scenes that advance either closer to or further from your protagonist’s goal, with enough breathing room between scenes for readers to digest each one and still stay engaged with what happens next.
Tom Monaghan employed this strategy when founding Domino’s Pizza in 1979. He set out to meet customers’ desire for pizza delivery within thirty minutes, knowing that the fastest system would involve having an uniformed driver personally deliver each slice himself. Monaghan believed this 30-minute guarantee would boost sales and establish his company as the go-to option, yet this policy led to so many automobile accidents causing deaths among innocent bystanders that it eventually was abandoned.