Writing Technical Question

[zute]

When I'm writing and I have a sudden change of scene or kind of skip over some boring, dull activities I put a little separator on the page. I can't recall ever seeing that in a novel. Is this some weird thing we do and novels just start a new chapter? I'm wondering if this is a bad habit I'm forming. :)

Comments

[elysium_fic]

Well, novels are indented for new paragraphs, rather than double spaced. So usually when they have a "section break" they use a double space, rather than any sort of symbol or emblem.

Since we double space between paragraphs, we have to use a line or symbol to mark section breaks.

[scarylady]

Wot she said.

[zute]

Okay, I thought that might be the case but I went paging through a book and couldn't find any examples.

[amhran_comhrac]

I've seen some novels use symbols in mid-chapter section breaks. Usually some sort of wingding at the center of the line.

But yeah, usually double spaced like they said.

[eltha7]

A lot of books just use a double space for the scene break. When the break falls at the very top or bottom of the page they may switch to a separator (a centered graphic, three dots, etc.) instead, since an extra space wouldn't be visible.

[aithne]

What everyone said above.

When I submit short stories, I put a # alone on a line to indicate a scene transition. Editorial staff replaces that with whatever happens to be their standard for scene breaks.

[sleepyowlet]

Timothy Zahn in the Thrawn-Trilogy. He uses *** when he jumps from one section/PoV to another within one chapter.
That's the one example I can name right now, because I thought it corresponded beautifully with the sliding scene-change in the Star Wars movies...
I use that too when I want to indicate a scene/PoV change, because I can never be sure if the site I post at doesn't eat my formatting. *cough* ff.net *cough*...