Section Breaks: Why You Need Them: How to Format Them

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Section Breaks, Section Breaks: How and Why to Set Them Up

Have You Ever Been Drawn Out of a Story by a Confusing Change?

While reading novels, short fiction, or nonfiction publications, you’ve likely grappled with writing where a substantial change takes place between paragraphs. You stop for a few seconds. Huh? After scanning the last few words of the previous paragraph, you realize that a section break would have saved you from your momentary lapse of reading enjoyment.

Consider the definition of break in the context of this post:

an interruption of continuity or uniformity; a disruption; a timeout

Section breaks help to organize your story when changes such as the following occur:

  • a switch to a different point of view
  • the passage of time
  • movement to another location

Sorry, Writers: An Extra Line Is Not a Good Solution

Although this is the method — the lazy method — chosen by many writers and publishers, it’s not a reader-friendly approach. What happens if your extra line ends up at the bottom of a page? When readers begin the next paragraph, they have no idea they’ve just crossed into new territory.

Shunn’s Advice

The Shunn Manuscript Format, preferred by a huge percentage of journals and publishers, recommends:

If you want a scene break to appear in your story, center the symbol “#” on a line by itself. Don’t just leave the line blank. As you edit and revise your manuscript prior to submission, those breaks can shift up or down, and word processors often hide blank lines that fall at the top or bottom of a page. You don’t want your editor skipping over your scene breaks because they accidentally vanished.

It’s All About Your Readers

Keep them happy, and they’ll keep coming back for more of your writing.

Note: Blank lines are not recommended before or after any of the section break suggestions below.

Try These Approaches

It’s fast and simple to center one of the following between paragraphs:

#

***

~*~

<>

…

Or You Can Create More Imaginative Section Breaks

Examine the suggestions that follow, and leverage them for your pièce de resistance.

thievery

If you’re writing a novel about bank robbers, safecrackers, gangs stealing drug cash stashes, or armored car hijackers, you might want to try one of these:

$$$

£££

€€€

Is the currency Japanese Yen? Indian Rupees? Chinese Yuan? Mexican Pesos? What about an alien currency or currencies? Your imagination is the limit.

scientists

Are you writing a story about Albert Einstein? Try:

E = mc²

Is your book about another scientist? Find one of the scientist’s equations that’s short enough to function as a section break. For example:

  • Pythagoras: a2 + b2 = c2
  • Georg Ohm: V = RI
  • Leonhard Euler: eiπ+ 1 = 0

mathematics

If your story revolves around a mathematics professor, kid math genius, or a statistical analyst, try something like this:

-+÷+-

crooked accounting

Perhaps you’re creating a thriller that focuses on a dishonest accountant, auditor, tax preparation service, or financial institution:

equity = assets – liabilities

interest = P*R*T + my illegal cut

proofreading

It might be fun to write about a nitpicking beta reader, editor, teacher, or boss:

(delete this) (delete that)

You’re kidding, right?

Find thousands of writing tips and word lists in
The Writer’s Lexicon series
and additional resources on my Facebook page.
–

The Graphical Solution

Although graphics are distinctive, they require more expertise, and they increase a book’s file size. If you have the knowledge — or your book formatter does — consider the options available to you.

Here’s Another Simple Solution

It was the painting that changed her life.

It was the moment that changed the world.

The unit clerk at the nursing station gaped, unable to speak. She pointed in the direction of Heinrich’s ward. Marianne rushed toward his room. No. Am I too late?

Heinrich was sitting up in bed. He was healthy. Handsome. Happy.

She hyperventilated. The bright lights blurred before her eyes. … She passed out.

Nobody believed it at first, but Heinrich’s brain tumor was indeed gone. He remembered Marianne. He remembered his surname. His family, delighted to find him after searching for so many years, took him home.

Is there any doubt in your mind where the section breaks appear?

Special Note

Although many writers opt for non-indented paragraphs with extra spacing between them, most sources recommend that fiction be written with indents, like the following.

Nothing in Marianne’s world seemed real anymore. For several weeks, she teetered in a daydream, or maybe a nightmare, hovering on the brink of insanity. Lights appeared brighter. Darkness appeared blacker. She often found herself staring at nothing. She entertained a fleeting urge to dye her auburn hair cobalt-blue like her daughter’s, but she decided it wouldn’t befit a woman her age. As most humans do, Marianne adjusted. The months marched by, and life continued.

Then, her daughter fell ill.

Ada had leukemia, the doctors said. Poor prognosis, the specialists agreed. Ada quit her classes at the university, and she asked Marianne to paint her portrait before it was too late, before she was too skinny.

“Please, Mom. It’ll give me something nice to look at when I can’t get out of bed anymore.”

What About Emojis as Section Breaks?

No. Never. Nuh uh.

They won’t convert properly without special treatment.

If you’re interested in that route, create graphics instead.

Have You Ever Encountered a Book With Unusual Section Breaks?

Or maybe you’ve written one. I’d love to hear about it.

Find thousands of writing tips and word lists in
The Writer’s Lexicon series
and additional resources on my Facebook page.
–

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15 thoughts on “Section Breaks: Why You Need Them: How to Format Them”

  1. I just got my book back from the editor, and he kept saying two lines between a change of POV. (This would not be a “scene” break.) Most of my reference materials are directed at essays and other non-fiction, and my layout experience is in newspapers, so I’ve been struggling with how big a break to use when setting up my novel. I’ve got “skipping a bit of time,” “changing POV,” and “changing scene.” Are those all the same size breaks? Or is a scene break bigger than a change of POV? Is a change of POV big enough to justify a dinkus?

    Reply ↓

    • In my opinion, Wendy, they would all justify a dinkus. Two lines doesn’t work. (See the Shunn’s Advice section). You could get by with using two lines in a print edition if you were extra careful. Then you’d have to reformat your digital edition. Why not make it easy for yourself and readers — especially readers? Happy readers = repeat readers. I’d recommend the same dinkus for all breaks. You could get creative and design a different dinkus for each type of break, but it would be a lot of work.

      Reply ↓

      • Because I’m a very nuanced writer and I write the hard-copy version first. I’ve figured out a simple way to construct a dinkus that resembles one form of my crystals, but I don’t want a 3-4 line break when I’m only changing POV character. (I need to change POV a lot, because some of my characters are non-verbal crystals that the reader can only “hear” if they’re in the mind of the person the crystal’s bonded to.) And yes, I could conceivably use the other form of my crystals for the other dinkus, but it’s a lot trickier for my digital rendering skills.

        Reply ↓

  3. Oh my. I thought you meant adding a Section Break, as you might do between the front matter and the text, and making the text start as page 1. This has given me fits. It’s easier in Mac than Windows, but it’s still way too complicated.
    This is way off-topic, but I’m going to share. I found a work-around. Create the sections as separate docs, save them as pdfs, then merge the pdfs. Easy peasy in Preview–just stick one onto the end of the other.
    I even did this with pages–a large table–I wanted to insert in Landscape mode, so they appeared sideways in the book.
    * * *
    This is how I do my section breaks. Following paragraph is not indented.

    Reply ↓

    • That’s what separates the desktop publishers from the mere word processors. Personally, I don’t use Word and haven’t found anything that edits PDF’s (and I have PDF with randomly-inverted pages and unremoved duplicate pages to prove it,) I just handle it manually and keep notes on how exactly I’m doing it on what will be the copyright page when I’m finished.

      Reply ↓

  4. Thanks for this sensible set of suggestions, Kathy. I tend to use the simple device of an extra blank line for fiction. For nonfiction, I’ve used a few different separators, but I do like the idea of matching that separator to the content.

    Reply ↓

  5. My novel includes music & musicians. I opted to do my breaks with musical clef signs (Bass, treble, alto) and notes. My editor said, “no,” but I will use the musical signs when I get to the publishing stage.

    Reply ↓