Dominoes are small rectangular wood or plastic blocks, normally twice as long as they are wide, marked by dots resembling those on dice. They can be arranged in straight lines, curved lines, grids that form pictures when they fall, and 3D structures like towers and pyramids. They are used for a variety of games and for artistic displays. Dominoes are the inspiration for the phrase domino effect, a series of events that each triggers a larger, usually more catastrophic, consequence.

Hevesh, a 20-year-old professional domino artist with millions of YouTube subscribers and dozens of shows under her belt, builds amazing displays from hundreds to thousands of individual dominoes. Some of her creations take several nail-biting minutes to fall. She has created a domino art Instagram account where she shares videos of her latest projects, as well as some of the process behind them. She has even set a Guinness World Record for the most dominoes toppled in a circular arrangement: 76,017.

When Hevesh creates her domino designs, she first has to think about how she wants the pieces to fall. Then, she draws a diagram on paper to plan out the track the dominoes will follow when they are knocked down. Whether the track is straight, curved, or has a grid that forms a picture, she calculates how many dominoes she needs to accomplish the desired effect.

Then, once she’s satisfied with her track, she places each domino where she needs it. They are held in place by the inertia of gravity and a force called elastic tension, which is a physical property of some materials that causes them to resist motion. But if the first domino is tipped over, it will trigger the chain reaction that eventually leads to the entire display falling down. Hevesh says that it takes a lot of energy to move one domino, but a little bit of a push can make a huge difference.

In fiction, a domino can represent a scene, or even a series of scenes. Each scene is insignificant by itself, but when you connect the dots, a whole story begins to emerge. As a novelist, you should always be thinking about what will happen next, and how the scene you are writing can impact the scene that comes after it.

Whether you are a “pantser,” who writes without a detailed outline, or a plotter who uses tools like Scrivener to help guide you, consider each scene as a domino. Each one should be in place to naturally trigger the next scene and advance your story forward in a compelling way. If not, your readers might wonder why you threw a piece of your plot on the floor instead of carefully placing it in its proper place.