Life Is A Celebration!

Imagine you have spent hours, aligning hundreds of dominos, narrow-end up, across a flat surface. You’ve placed the black, shiny tiles perfectly so they form an intricate and unusual pattern. Now finished, your finger is poised at the beginning. You tap the first domino lightly. With pride you watch as the line tumbles gracefully, one clicking against another, until the formation comes to a glorious end.

Writing a well-designed story is a lot like setting up dominos. Each sentence, paragraph, scene and chapter must be aligned in your intricate formation. The writing dominos you work with may include showing vs telling, description, view point, senses, mood, voice, plot, dialogue, characterization, and humor. If any of the writing dominos are off-centered or missing, your beautiful story will fail.

Writers who understand the power of correct placement look upon their manuscript as an exciting challenge. They instinctively study a newly finished scene and ask themselves what needs changing, adding or deleting. Will they need a domino from their bag of writing tricks for a missing slot? Or will they have to carefully adjust an off-centered tile so that it aligns perfectly with the others?

For beginners (and for those who haven’t yet developed this gut instinct), condition yourself to recognize what a missing or an off-centered domino looks like. The knowledge comes with practice, hard work and common sense. It is also called pay-attention-to-what-the- reader-sees.

For example, let’s look at an obvious missing domino. Imagine that paragraphs one through twelve have Katy in the house washing dishes and talking to her mother on the phone. Suddenly in paragraph thirteen Katy is outside washing the car and talking to her dog. A transition domino is needed. Add a short paragraph between twelve and thirteen to show Katy ending mom’s phone call and going outside with her dog. Voila! You’ve filled in the open slot.

Here’s another missing domino. Veronica is home, alone, with only a dozing cat for company. She’s just finished reading a romantic love scene in one of her favorite books and is staring dreamily into the fire. Suddenly Veronica throws the book across the room and jumps to her feet, dislodging the sleepy animal from her lap. She mumbles something under her breath, then walks slowly into her darkened bedroom to get ready for bed.

Let’s say that the author used the dominos needed to build a believable scene; such as the five senses, description, and mood. However, one very important domino has been overlooked. Motivation. Why did the character suddenly throw her book? The author neglected to explain that Veronica hasn’t had a date for over a year, and she feels that her chances of meeting an interesting man are nil to none.

Now look at an example of an off-centered domino. A scene takes place outdoors. The day is sunny, horribly hot with no wind. The characters walk and engage in a captivating conversation, yet appear to be totally unfazed by the high temperatures. This scene needs some five-senses realignment. With a few short sentences the author can adjust the scene to show where perspiration drips from His brow or She fans her face with her hand.

The timing domino is another often mis-aligned piece. Envision a scene where Charles is hiking and has stumbled across a rattler. The snake coils, ready to strike. Yet paragraph after paragraph, the author goes to great detail in describing the beauty of the reptile, the sound of the animal’s ominous rattle and the texture of the sand surrounding it. The detail, though well-written, is not pertinent to Charles view point. Charles would not be noting sand textures here. The snake is about to strike!

The domino line can be fixed at any time by concentrating on one very important rule. For every action there must be a reaction. Remember your writing dominos and keep your flow moving smoothly to a glorious end.