Domino is a popular game that involves placing small, rectangular blocks of wood or other material on the edge of a table. Each domino has a number of dots that indicate its value, and players attempt to form chains of tiles by laying them down one at a time in such a way that each end shows a number. Once a chain is complete, the player begins to score points. Many variations of the game exist, including single-player games and tournaments for multiple players.
Hevesh is a 20-year-old college student who has a passion for dominoes. She has amassed a following of more than 2 million on YouTube where she creates her own domino constructions and posts videos of them. Her largest creations involve hundreds of thousands of dominoes and can take several nail-biting minutes to fall. Hevesh has also worked on team projects for movies, TV shows, and events, including a record-setting domino rally for Katy Perry.
To play domino, each player draws seven tiles from the stock, a set of 28 double-six numbered tiles. The rest of the dominoes remain shuffled face down on the table, known as the boneyard. The first player to draw a double-six wins the opening turn. If no one has a double, the winner is the player who has the heaviest domino.
The next step is to arrange these tiles on the table in a line called the layout, string, or line of play. Each domino must be played adjacent to the previous tile. This means that the open end of a domino is always visible to the opponent. After the initial tiles have been played, additional ends may be added by “stitching them up” to show more of the pips. This allows for more combinations of ends to be used and increases the maximum number of pieces that can be played.
As the number of dominoes continues to grow, it is important for the losing players to keep track of their points. Many rules have been developed to help players do this, with some counting all of the pips on a domino and others only allowing one end of a double to be counted (i.e., a domino with 4-4 counts as only four points).
Like dominoes, stories need to be paced correctly for them to be compelling. A story must move forward at a pace that is neither too slow nor too fast, so the reader can see the next challenge or goal at each scene. If a scene is too long or too short, it can feel choppy or shallow at critical moments of discovery and plot development.