Behind the Scenes

Behind the Scenes of Like Dominoes

On October 23, 2020, I published a little one shot as its own book with its own cover and everything. It's called Like Dominoes and its for The Outsiders. 

The Outsiders was written by S.E. Hinton in 1967 when she was sixteen. If you haven't read it or watched the film adaptation, you're missing out on one of the best books written for young adults. She wrote it to point out the rivalry between social classes in her modern day. It takes place in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the 60s. We are reading fourteen-year-old Ponyboy Curtis' English assignment that he wrote about the events he and his friends endured. I love this story so much. Favorite assigned read ever. 

After watching the movie adaptation for the first time about a week prior, I woke up one morning inspired by this question: How would the rest of the gang die? Dark, I know. It wasn't a pleasant morning. Still, as I lay there still half-asleep, I imagined a death for each surviving member that was so in character and realistic, I could see it happening in canon. 

I told a friend and my siblings my ideas and they were all very concerned. Yet, I felt inspired to write the idea under my "brain dump" folder to get it out of the way. It was intended to stay there, but I was so proud of it, I asked my followers if they wanted me to post it. They did and thus, Like Dominoes was published. 

Spoilers for The Outsiders from this point forward 

If you read the one shot, you would know it was written in the perspective of Two-Bit Matthews. My original ideas included that, after Johnny and Dallas of course, Ponyboy would be the first to die. He was the survivor of Bob's murder. I think if Ponyboy was to die, it would be by Socs. Whether it was relevant to Bob's death or just a normal jumping, I decided later. I had the slight issue of the terms of the rumble, that if the greasers won, which they did, Socs would leave them alone. However, we never got any evidence that the rumble single-handedly solved the social class war. In fact, Ponyboy was almost jumped at the end of the novel by Bob's friends. I included some parallels to the attack that scarred Johnny for life, like how the gang seemed to sense where he was and Soda holding the victim. Also, I thought it was unlikely for Pony to ever want to visit the place where Johnny killed Bob and where he almost drowned, so I said the Socs dragged him there for irony and symbolism. Who knew Socs were so poetic? 

I took Darry as the kind of guy who would try to stay strong for the others and won't waste his tears if there is still hope left. I said that his world revolves around his brothers, which it does, but I also said that it revolved around Ponyboy especially. They may argue, but Darry worked hard to keep Pony in school. Soda had already dropped out and was in the swing of things that he could provide for himself after turning eighteen. Pony was the baby of the family. So when he died, I wrote that Darry snapped first. I compared him to Dally because I realized how parallel Pony and Darry could be to Johnny and Dally. A friend pointed out that Darry was too responsible and law-abiding to go out like Dallas, but this is Darry that blew up. Maybe when he snaps, he becomes a completely different person. It takes a sound mind for some people to be moral or lawful. 

Soda dies next. To be honest, I couldn't really decide how he died. The only image in my head was a broken, distraught Sodapop making his way to Steve's house after the deaths of his brothers, except he never made it. Even after posting it, I wasn't quite sure how he died and wrote about his heart for symbolism. Then another friend pointed out that this way was realistic. Padmé Amidala died the same way, and we both have read about how your heart can literally break and cause death. So that thankfully worked out. 

Steve broke down after his best friend died, and this was easy. I already knew Steve's dad yelled at him and threw him out of the house often. I just needed to make Steve angry enough to fight back. 

Because it's in his point of view and I thought he would die last, Two-Bit Matthews was the last domino to be knocked over. Since he drank often, his death wasn't difficult to imagine either. That line where Two-Bit thinks "Finally," was inspired by a quote from Monsters of Men, the third book in Patrick Ness' Chaos Walking trilogy. 

The dominoes comparison came to me when I sat down to write it; I needed a title. The Fates came as I was writing because it fits. I thought Pony may know what they are, but not Two-Bit. I wanted to play with the idea that greasers really have no idea what the future is going to be like while Socs are thinking about college and jobs that's going to make them a lot of money. And those things were pretty much guaranteed. 

This is the darkest piece I've ever written. It isn't because of gore, I didn't describe their deaths very vividly on purpose and I've written plenty of more gory stories. It's the darkest because it's The Outsiders. As a contemporary novel, The Outsiders touches on a lot of very real things: violence, smoking, mugging, fights, social class, drinking, addiction, murder, suicide, abuse, death, etc. Thus, writing a fanfic off of it, you have to mentions some pretty real and dark things. Also, if you've read my fanfics, I tend to not kill characters in order to not stray from canon. Here, I killed all of them. I was told I don't need to make it mature, but if I ever do, it will be the first story I ever labeled as mature. 

Despite all of that, I've also been told it is one of my best writings. That it was super real and emotional. I've made readers mad and sad and say they hate me (not completely seriously). Honestly, I see that as an accomplishment. 

I hope you guys like it. Stay gold.