Weekly Writers: Scene Breaks

For a change of time, place, or perspective

Here’s the Weekly Writers Monday post. This post is for paid subscribers only. If you’d like to become one, you get 50% off the annual subscription if you click the button below!

---

Scene breaks are sometimes referred to as section breaks or text breaks: in fiction, it is common to use a scene break to indicate a change of time, location or viewpoint.

The simplest form is to just have a gap between the final paragraph of the previous section, and the first paragraph of the next.

The first paragraph following a scene break is usually treated the same as the one that opens a chapter: so in most fiction, will be flush left with no indent, followed by an indented paragraph. Like this:

Another system for indicating a scene break is to include a visual element. That may be as simple as blank lines with

* * *

between them, centred, just like that.

Or a fancier symbol can be used (called an ornamental break), such as:

When used in a book, they may look like this:

The symbol can be related to the theme, so a book called “Autumn Leaves” might have a symbol made up of a line of leaves, for example. A horror book might have a smear of blood, a romance might have a soft curve. It could even be an element of the cover imagery.