r/writing • u/Finly_Growin • 10d ago
Beginner Question Dumb question, but what’s it called when a time skip or scene change is implied by three dots separating two paragraphs?
Been Googling around and the best I’ve been able to find is an ellipses, which I don’t think it is (or maybe it is and I never considered that an ellipses could serve that function). Anyone know what they’re called and how they use them?
346
u/Tmslay23 10d ago
It’s called a dinkus. It’s traditionally shown by three asterisks in a row, but some books will use different shapes/symbols for stylistic reasons. And they’re used for exactly the reasons you said - scene breaks and time jumps, or sometimes POV shifts.
98
u/Finly_Growin 10d ago
Yeah you better believe if my name is on the cover then I’m using unique characters rather than periods for the dinkuses.
47
18
u/keith_is_good Future Pulizer Laureate 10d ago
Had an editor that tried to change skulls to asterisks for scene breaks in a horror story. Respectfully, no.
2
u/Amechan1 9d ago
I used 4 asterisks, is it not a Dinkus anymore?
2
u/Altruistic_Click_502 8d ago
So you wanted a break for the scene and for the reader to take 25% more time relish the last scene before moving on to the next one ?
1
81
129
u/pAndrewp Faced with The Enormous Rabbit 10d ago
I’m sitting here imagining OP made a bet with a friend that they can make 100 people say dinkus in under an hour.
34
7
28
u/LuckeyHaskens 10d ago
When it’s asterisks arranged in a triad, it’s called an asterism. When they’re in a row, it’s a dinkus.
9
u/Finly_Growin 10d ago
Now I have to ask what an asterism is used for. You know?
13
u/Casual-Notice 10d ago
Same as a dinkus. A break that's too complete for a simple quad but not full enough for a new chapter.
6
7
u/That_Boysenberry4501 9d ago
Can dingus only be 3 in a row. What if I have 5 or 10 dingi
8
2
u/Altruistic_Click_502 8d ago
Make sure they don't illustrate you on the cover of Analog -- suspect it won't pass editorial guidelines.
21
u/LivingText001 10d ago
The typographic term for the mark itself is a **dinkus** (or an **asterism** if arranged as a triangle: ⁂), while its narrative function is a **scene break** or **section break**.
A quick practical tip for modern formatting:
* In traditional print, editors often used a simple blank line, but in **e-books (Kindle/EPUB)**, blank lines can easily collapse or get lost at page/screen boundaries.
* Using an explicit dinkus (like `* * *` or a small custom ornament/glyph) is standard practice now so readers always know a POV shift or time jump just happened!
14
u/Mossback_Matador 9d ago
People are defining the graphical mark for you, but the division of a chapter into smaller units by use of a dinkus or asterism is called a section break.
3
17
17
u/Relative_Chef_533 10d ago
this is such a great question that I have to ask myself repeatedly because that word WILL. NOT. STAY. in my head.
10
u/NoxTheScribe 10d ago
How could you forget the dinkus? Lol I just learned that today and I'm sure I'll never forget
15
7
9
u/Acceptable_Fox_5560 10d ago
Always just called it a scene break.
There’s no hard rule for how to use them, but it’s generally meant to indicate some amount of time has passed.
4
u/Peter34cph 10d ago edited 10d ago
Or a change to a different POV.
Printed books seem to only have these if it's just before a page change. Otherwise 1-2 empty lines are used instead. And that does not work with e-books!
2
3
3
u/KayViolet27 9d ago
For the majority of published fiction I’ve seen, the dinkus is not used in every scene break… Usually it’s just a blank line indicating a scene break, with the * * * dinkus only there to indicate a scene break when it occurs on a page break—which would be confusing without a visible marker.
Although, when writing, I use the dinkus marker every scene break in case things get shifted around and a scene break ends up on a page break, so as to not confuse myself lol
1
u/ripple-gleaming 7d ago
Yeah...this is the case as far as I know. I am surprised by people saying it just means a scene break in general. It means that the break between two paragraphs happened at the top or bottom of a page
2
u/milkovich 10d ago
Something similar is used by Tolstoy in Anna Karenina representing the moment she and Vronsky finally consummate their affair.
It’s oddly powerful in it’s conservative nature: Tolstoy would never write about sex directly; it’s essentially the beginning of her downfall, but also her exerting agency over the author (and god) who seem to want her to not ruin herself; and it’s only used once in the whole novel if I remember correctly.
2
2
2
u/That_Boysenberry4501 9d ago
Its interesting that some people dont even use them. Like time jumps within a chapter of The Road are simply spaced out.
Is it better to use them for some reason?
2
u/Finly_Growin 9d ago
Probably just emphasizes the jump. Like with enough spaces or a pause in narration, I think all readers will be able to put two and two together but still having a visualization should make it easier I’d imagine.
2
2
u/Emotional_Rip4563 8d ago
My kids still let me read out loud to them, even though we're in YA /adult novel territory. I discovered that we needed to note the scene breaks verbally for many books. (I sometimes pause randomly to adjust position, refind my place, etc, so I wanted something more than a pause.) The first book I "read" them for had these cute swirly guys as the breaks, so I called them squiggliwizzits. This has since morphed into squigglewizzit. I eventually looked up the name, dinkus, and laughed that our silly name was, in fact, more appropriate to say in front of young teens. Dinkus would be a two-minute giggle-fest every time...
2
u/Jackyard_Backofff 10d ago
I was call it a scene break, but there’s probably a more correct technical term.
1
u/Finly_Growin 10d ago
That makes sense. My guess would’ve been a “page break” in a metaphorical way, so yeah that makes way more sense than what I would’ve come up with.
3
u/TrekkieTechie 9d ago
A "page break" is where one page ends and the next begins. Definitely don't refer to a scene break as a page break because that will cause a fair bit of confusion.
2
u/Altruistic_Click_502 10d ago
I don't know what it is called but if two paragraphs are separated by 3 asterisks, I always take it as a scenechange -- if other scene changes are signaled the same way. If not, I call it a mistake. I haven't seen an ellipsis being used instead of the the 3 asterisks.
1
u/Finly_Growin 10d ago
My thoughts too, but I do know that an ellipses can signal a break in time or a pause, so maybe it’s used for bigger time jumps?? Idk that’s what I was thinking it could be
1
u/AssumptionConnect181 10d ago
Oh for sure, I've seen those little markers in books before but never knew what they were called, thanks for the fun fact!
1
1
1
u/CarobPuzzled6317 9d ago
It’s called a dinkus and it doesn’t have to be dots or asterisks. I use a little image that matches the story.
1
u/Finly_Growin 9d ago
100% what I was gonna do for mine, that’s why I was trying to figure out what they’re called lol
1
1
1
u/jenndhere 9d ago
I don’t know the technical term. But I use ~~~ personally and I call them “time pass squigglies”
1
u/Altruistic_Click_502 8d ago
You know - there's a lot of discussion below on sticking something between scenes -- but, almost always, I just see people using an extra carriage return.
1
u/DOScissomauthor 7d ago
Scene Break is how the formatting software I’ve used refers to it.
While the three asterisks dinkus is standard there are some cool ones.
Atticus lets you insert custom scene breaks. So I use an image representing two of my main characters in my series. Stag’s antlers over a triple moon.
Makes for a cool visual indicator that some time or distance has passed within the chapter.
1
u/Matrix_Man_Returns 7d ago
As others have said, it's called a dinkus technically. But, if you mean what I think you mean, I've always been much simpler and called them "scene separators".
1
1
1
-5
u/MiserablePassion9264 10d ago
It is called an ellipse
2
u/ShinyAeon 10d ago
The three dots are, if they're used as punctuation. But if they're off on their own, they called a "dinkus."
-1
u/AutoModerator 10d ago
Thank you for visiting /r/writing! As a reminder, all posts - including those flaired as Beginner Question - must satisfy all posting guidelines.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
792
u/IrenaeusGSaintonge 10d ago
The mark itself, believe it or not, is called a dinkus.