Dominos are small, flat, rectangular-shaped pieces of game material used for scoring games. They come in many different materials, including plastic, ivory, bone, and stone. Domino pieces are usually twice as long as they are wide, and they are made to be half as thick on the top as they are on the bottom.
A domino can be any shape or color, but it is most often white with black pips. Dominos are sometimes arranged to form shapes, patterns, and images, such as a heart or a castle, and they can be stacked to make towers and pyramids. When a domino is set up in careful sequence, it can produce spectacular and imaginative reactions and effects. For example, in a domino show, builders compete for the most complex and inventive domino effect or reaction before an audience of fans.
When a domino is placed at the beginning of a long line, the touching ends of two adjacent pieces must match: one’s touch ones and two’s touch two’s. The player is then awarded points depending on the total number of dots exposed on each end. The most basic Western domino game uses a double-twelve or double-nine domino set, but extended sets can be created with progressively larger numbers of ends.
In some countries, domino is played with a deck of cards instead of the traditional domino tiles. The card game differs from the traditional version in that it is more prone to trick-taking and less focused on accumulating points. In addition, the deck of cards has the advantage of allowing players to circumvent religious proscriptions against playing cards.
The word “domino” derives from the Latin for “falling down.” The most common way to play domino is in a game of skill called concentration, in which each player has a hand of tiles and takes turns picking one to play and then placing it on a domino line. The player with the highest domino in his or her hand leads, generally by playing a piece with the heaviest total pips count.
Another popular game is a race to reach a certain point first, and the player who does so wins. A game of this kind can be played on a small scale, such as between two people, or in a large crowd, with each person racing to reach a certain point before anyone else.
In a narrative, each scene can be seen as a domino that naturally influences the scene that comes after it, just as a single domino can cause other dominoes to fall. If a writer is not careful, however, her scenes may be scattered about without much impact. In this article, we will discuss how to use the domino analogy to help create a more cohesive and effective story. For example, if a character uncovers an important clue in one scene and the next scene is insignificant or unrelated, it might be time for a rewrite. The resulting novel will be more like a carefully laid series of scene dominoes that impact each other in a meaningful way.