Have you ever run across a blank space in a story and wondered why it was there? Wondering how to use section breaks in your own stories? Here is how I use them. Your mileage may vary.
By “section break,” I mean interruptions to the continuous flow of text, such as a line of empty white space, or dividing sections with a dinkus. That’s a line with three asterisks, centered on the page. (See the example below.)
When there is a small time shift in the story, I separate it with a line of empty white space. For example, if characters are traveling and not much happens during the trip, I just say:
The Ketchup Club’s secret had gotten out. They used ketchup on their hot dogs, and everyone in Chicago knew. The local food critics were out for blood. As they were no longer safe, they decided to leave town.
After three days on the train, The Ketchup Club arrived in South Dakota. At last, they would be free to eat whatever they wanted. In South Dakota, nobody cared about what you ate. Nobody cared about much of anything.
Here, the white space visually represents the time that passed during the trip without any developments in the plot. No characters were arced, no Chekhov guns were fired. Nothing much happened.
White space also comes in handy when characters are recalling a past event. I separate their memory, reminiscing, or storytelling from the normal timeline of the story, both at the beginning and end.
I also use empty space to show changes in scene focus. For example, if I’m showing a large spaceship battle and want to “zoom in” to show what’s going on inside one particular ship, I’ll separate it with an empty line.
What about a dinkus? I use a dinkus to indicate shifts in location, such as “cutting away” to what the villain is doing while the heroes are traveling:
The Ketchup Club’s secret had gotten out. They used ketchup on their hot dogs, and everyone in Chicago knew. The local food critics were out for blood. As they were no longer safe, they decided to leave town.
***
The food critics were furious. Those ketchup eaters had escaped! They gathered their weapons – club sandwiches, citric acid, assault shakers – and headed after them.
***
After three days on the train, The Ketchup Club arrived in South Dakota. At last, they would be free to eat whatever they wanted. In South Dakota, nobody cared about what you ate. Nobody cared about much of anything.
For bigger, more significant shifts in the story, I will use a chapter break. Chapter breaks are useful for changes in time and location that are also another step forward in the plot – Act I to Act II, the Call To Adventure to Refusal Of The Call, the next step in the hero’s plan to enter the cursed cornfield and rescue his kidnapped girlfriend from the Scarecrow Demon, that sort of thing.
If you’re having trouble deciding when and where to use section breaks in your story, I find it helps to think of your story as a movie, and imagine where the director would cut or fade to black. Keep in mind that you don’t have to use section breaks the way I do. Some writers will only use white space or only use a dinkus. There are no set rules. A lot of it is just experience and seeing what works. And it always helps to get beta readers and see what works for them.
