Scene breaks question

[Daniel]

Question about scene breaks, as the topic says.

Question is: how do people generally feel about the markers for between scenes?

What I normally do is this:

[Paragraph ends the scene, formatting is the usual formatting]
*line space*
[Elipsis (...) in center for scene break, have to format it separately though]
*line space*
[Next scene starts with new paragraph, indented, which I just remembered you're not *supposed* to do on the first line]

It's hard work going through an MS and fiddling with this for all instances where scenes are broken up. But, I feel it does look better.

What's the easiest way to do this in Word with Styles? Should I make a 'scene break' style and apply that to every such scene break (within the chapters)?

Thanks in advance.

[Christina]

Hi Daniel. For some books, I do exactly what you described with three asterisks. For others, I use triple spacing and no visual marker. The only issue with this is that depending on how someone has their Kindle formatted, the space may not appear as prominent (plus you have to add the spacing, simply hitting enter won't translate). I actually had someone comment on my lack of scene breaks when I used this method.

As far as how to make it easier, I honestly just insert them manually while I'm editing.

[Anna]

I've used ~ and + and * * * and * * * * *

For my wip, I am back to ~.

One line space above these and one below. I did do without the spaces once, but I think a space looks better.

I enjoy having options!

[Dwayne, Head of Lettuce]

In short stories, I usually go with this: * * *

In my first novel, I did this: << >><< >><< >>

In my second novel (still a work in progress), since the chapters are a bit lengthy, I give each scene a title of its own, such as Purple Rain Was Pretty Stupid and The Traumatized Ladybug Boy.

In all methods, like everyone else, I put a space above and below.

[David]

When writing I use ### to break it up, then when I'm ready to correct formatting I go back a replace with a little graphic that matches the theme of the book, ie a little palm tree image for my book set in a Florida retirement community.

I think it looks sharp and gives a little more character to the work.

[J. Daniel, Lurking since 2015]

Christina wrote: "I actually had someone comment on my lack of scene breaks when I used this method."

Hehe - That was me! I would not recommend using this method.

I use the three asterisks. I do like David's use of a graphic, but I wonder if it would show up correctly on all e-readers.

[C.B.]

David wrote: "...it looks sharp and gives a little more character to the work..."

I really like the palm tree graphic. It does give the page a nice pro look. However, formatting for Kindle with the embedded graphics could get complicated.

Some authors use a simple combination of dash, lower case "o," and number "0" to generate: -o0o- (hmmm... this looks better in TNR)

And yes, if you're formatting in word, set up a "Heading 4" that is 6pt. before, 12 pt. after, centered, and apply it to your section break symbol (assuming your par. is formatted 6pt. after). Bonus: use the "Navigation Pane" in Word and it will show up all of your little section breaks.

Downside is, you may have to mess with your TOC format so that the section breaks don't show up.

[David]

Not sure about other formats, but the little graphic does work and looks good on .mobi files!

[Anna]

David wrote: "When writing I use ### to break it up, then when I'm ready to correct formatting I go back a replace with a little graphic that matches the theme of the book, ie a little palm tree image for my boo..."

Yes, I like that idea but I wouldn't know how to do it! Also, I like to keep things simple, nothing too complicated!

And I don't worry about putting ~ or *** as a heading. I just centre it.

[M.L.]

I use:

sentence ending.

* * * (centered)

Sentence block style first paragraph.
Indent next.

I do it manually and it takes time for sure.

I have question though. How do you put a graphic in an ebook format? I use Word and upload to KDP.

Also, is there a way to add a small picture to the Amazon page? The Hangman's Daughter has a lot of neat pics both in the book and on the page. They look like pen & ink or etchings/woodcuts, something. Do you know how to add something like that?

[Christina]

David wrote: "Not sure about other formats, but the little graphic does work and looks good on .mobi files!"

Because the mobi and epub files don't recognize transparent PNG files, it looks great as long as the reader keeps the default background. I use the sepia or green page a lot when reading on a backlit tablet, so embedded pictures usually show up with a white box around them. For this reason, I only get fancy with my paperback versions.

[Angel]

I don't use symbols or graphics or asterisk. As a reader they are distracting and annoying. As a writer, they are distracting, annoying and I feel like I'm being lazy. I use scene transitions, like date month or what year it is or I describe the scene of what season it is, or I'll set the scene with "A week later," or Three months later," or "A few days ago," A few hours later," symbols like that which set the next scene or the next chapter. When doing chapters, going into the next chapter I label them like what Dwayne mentioned with their own Chapter no. with titles pertaining to the chapter/scene/ my own original quotes. It has worked quite well for me, particularly for the reader. Besides, it takes more thought and makes the story more well written at least in my case because I don't use ***, and things like that.

[T.L.]

I did start using centred *****
but it got messy, and I was advised that this is not used in trad pub books, and to use a double space instead :-/

[T.R.]

I use centered * * * too. What I like is that Scrivener can insert any break symbol automatically between scenes, so I don't have to bother doing it manually.
Though personally I'd say I prefer it when when stories have a neat little graphic between scene breaks, like fancy swirls or symbols, but I've yet to try using anything like that.

[G.G.]

T.R. wrote: "Though personally I'd say I prefer it when stories have a neat little graphic between scene breaks, like fancy swirls or symbols, but I've yet to try using anything like that..."

Personally, I like them too, but not everyone does. I had fancy swirls in my print and someone said it looked stupid and unprofessional. Now I only skip lines and start with a dropped letter just like I do at the beginning of a chapter. In eBooks, I don't do dropped letters because I am afraid of how it may turn out, so I just go with a bold letter instead.

[W.]

I've been informed by editors that just the open line is sufficient

[Amie]

In my ebook I used the generous spacing of 3 lines with the same symbol as Dwayne mentioned centered within it. <<<>>>

In my paperback version I'm using a custom decorative line spacer. (Thank you, Christina!!! She made this possible last night :)

I didn't do so with the e-book because I would have had to pay $3 per placement. But with the paperback I can manually put them in the file myself.

[Jay]

Asterisks aren't pretty enough. I favor three degree marks with a space between each, for time breaks, ° ° ° and four for chapter breaks.

[Dan]

Seeing as I'm mostly writing first-person narratives these days, I just have the character's language dictate a scene shift. I feel like if I can't naturally transition from a scene with words, I either don't need to be moving on yet, or I never needed the scene in the first place.

As a reader, I've always kind of found visual cues to unneeded and even cumbersome in some cases. I don't necessarily hate them, and I won't knock other people's choice to use them, but I don't personally enjoy them. I find them distracting. That said, good writing is good writing is good writing, and that wins every time, no matter what else happens to be on the page.

[R.]

Personally I tend to use # # # or similar.

[Cathy]

I use ### and add them manually as I write.

[Jane]

You can actually do what pleases you best. I'm seriously considering using jewels in the WIP because that would fit so well with the story.

[T.L.]

Oooh, a real mixed bag of fors and againsts here.
I can see the pros and cons of each.

Incidentally, I'm just editing my book and came to my first scene break. It prompted me to come and look at this topic. It was the first notification in my list! :-O

Hm, I think I'm sticking with extra line spaces for now.

Jane; I like your diamond idea though ;-)
tbh I thought about leaves for mine, but I'm being cowardly as I fear the mighty Zon's interpretation when it grinds its cogs ;-)

[Christina]

T.L. wrote: "Hm, I think I'm sticking with extra line spaces for now."

For e-readers, insert the line after paragraph and adjust the spacing to 36 points. It will look crazy big while writing, but on an E-reader it will show even if readers have their spacing set to narrow.

[M.L.]

Some paperbacks I've read recently have chapters & scene breaks that begin with all caps for the first 4-7 words. It hardly noticed it when reading, but it set the next section off. I doubt if I would try it in an ebook--although I have seen the same technique in ebooks, but it just shows there are lots of ways to cue the story nuances.

[Dwayne, Head of Lettuce]

Out of curiosity, I grabbed a couple dozen or more novels at random here at the library and flipped through them. Some had no breaks in the chapters. Some had very, very short chapters. The ones with breaks in the chapters - about half used a space and nothing else. The rest were a variety of things from a string of vertical lines, to long horizontal lines. One had the sections numbered with the number in parenthesis. It was kind of fun to see how various authors, some very well known, some not so much, in all kinds of genres, tackled the issue.

[Christina]

I did the same thing regarding the formatting of the first paragraph, Dwayne. It looks like no consensus even among publishers. Some of them indent the first line just as normal, some start with block format, some have drop caps, and some do all caps for a few words. Some start the chapter at the top of the page and some start it halfway down.

For ebooks, I indent only. I think it looks cleaner and flows well for resizing. When I see block formatting after a scene break on an ebook, it just looks like improper formatting occurred.

[M.L.]

It is interesting. In And The Mountains Echoed, in addition to other things, they used a small sketch of a feather (the significance is part of the story).
I recently re-read Dune and there are chapter breaks, but no chapter numbers, no separate pages for chapters, no titles. The chapters are designated (paperback) by about an inch of space, then an epigraph in italics, followed by bold-From the Diary of...
I thought it was cool. :)
To me, it's all part of the artistic package.

[Amanda]

In the past I did the three *** and I liked how it looked. I recently changed to using a heart as my scene break. Trying to put all the love I can in it. *chuckles* I really like the heart, although depending what format it is, it sometimes looks a little tiny, but that's okay because it's just breaking the scene up for me. I also created a style in Word so it's easier to format for me. I love creating styles and I use different ones for each book (or the same ones if it's a series.)

[Dwayne, Head of Lettuce]

Christina wrote: "It looks like no consensus even among publishers."

It's just one of those many thousands of little things that, bottom line, is a stylistic choice. Some like scene breaks, some do not. Some indicate with dots or dashes or funny little pictures, some do not. I'm willing to wager that if we polled the average reader what they prefer, they'd say, "Don't give a flotsam. Just make sure your story makes sense and is entertaining, thought-provoking, emotional, or enlightening." It's interesting to see what various authors do or have done, but it's just window-dressing.

One observation I noticed, it seems to be a newer thing. A lot of older novels had no breaks in their chapters and tended to have much longer chapters, too.

[R.]

Dwayne wrote: "Out of curiosity, I grabbed a couple dozen or more novels at random here at the library and flipped through them. Some had no breaks in the chapters. Some had very, very short chapters. The ones wi..."

I think it depends on how the writer sees the scenes. Having worked in television I tend to think of cutting between several cameras, so I end up with scene breaks.

[M.L.]

It's kind of like music. The score doesn't run together, it has sections, whole rests, half rests, quarter rests, stuff like that.

By the way, Word has the 'insert' feature and you can add symbols. I'll stay with asterisks for now, but there are some interesting ones. :)

[Dwayne, Head of Lettuce]

M.L. Roberts wrote: "It's kind of like music. The score doesn't run together, it has sections, whole rests, half rests, quarter rests, stuff like that.

Great analogy!

[Blaque]

I myself use three stars to indicate a scene change in my stories, and i use dashes to indicate the ending of a story and the start of another and my collection of short stories.

[T.L.]

Christina wrote: "T.L. wrote: "Hm, I think I'm sticking with extra line spaces for now."

For e-readers, insert the line after paragraph and adjust the spacing to 36 points. It will look crazy big while writing, but..."

Thank you xx

[Brian]

I'm sure there are best practices but I like it when I see something that fits the theme/tone of the book or story. Some use a custom graphic to separate which is kind of cool but a bit of a pain with making sure embedded images show up properly or convert to kindle etc...

I've even gone a bit cheesy with mine and do a location or date stamp across the story but I've noticed this to be more genre specific.

In any case, I don't think a reader would get too hung up on anything simple, three astricts, <> marks, a short line (possibly decorative). I sent different stuff to different beta readers and not one of them commented on it, so it seems to be something that is often ignored unless you call very specific attention to it.

[Micah]

I use both *** and just an extra line space depending on what kind of break it is.

For changes of scene completely (a significant time or location change), or when I feel it's important the reader notices the break, I use ***.

But if I'm still in the same time/location and I'm changing POV, or if I'm moving the time slightly ahead, I just use an extra line space.

On eBooks, where the reader sets the font size so you have no idea where these breaks will occur on the screen. If you use only a line space, major shifts in scene can sometimes show up at the top of a new page, where the eye can be challenged recognizing the break. Therefore, a visual cue is needed.

But for minor changes even if the reader doesn't see the line break it's not such a big deal. I mean I've seen books that use no line breaks at all even when time/location changes drastically and it can be rather jarring.

So for me it's not so much a question of what kind of graphic (or not) is used, but a question of the severity of the change and how important it is the reader recognize the break.

Separations in order of importance:
1) New Chapter
2) ***
3) Extra line space

[Eldon, Lost on the road to Mordor]

Christina wrote: "plus you have to add the spacing, simply hitting enter won't translate"

Excellent discussion and topic :)

I'm curious Christina, how do you add spacing without hitting enter?

[Micah]

Eldon wrote: "Christina wrote: "plus you have to add the spacing, simply hitting enter won't translate"

Excellent discussion and topic :)

I'm curious Christina, how do you add spacing without hitting enter?"

Well ... kind of depends on how you submit your files. If you're submitting a Kindle doc, then you'd do it by creating a Style that has extra space after (and possibly before) each paragraph. (If you right click on a Style from the Home tab--looking at Word 2010 here--then select Modify, and then Format/Paragraph, it's in the Spacing section.)

If you're a nerd like me and work directly in HTML, then you just use < br > (without the space between < and br ... if you know what I mean)

[Eldon, Lost on the road to Mordor]

Thanks Micah!!

Styles is something I need to get a handle on. For some reason they vex me; more of an Excel nerd I guess :)

[Christina]

In word, all you need to do is go to the paragraph ribbon, click spacing, and select 'add space after paragraph.' There's no need to fuss and get fancy, but like I said, for defined scene breaks, I will adjust the space to 36 point.