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Many times in reading, I saw many symbols that indicate the time skip. I wanted to create the exact same stylish marks that many authors use but I wonder what's the exact name for it. I call it time symbols, others called it Dinkus or ornaments, are all those the correct term for it?

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Artemis Silver
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2 Answers2

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Wikipedia indicates that there are several names for the symbols placed between sections: "dinkus, space break symbol, paragraph separator, paragraph divider, horizontal divider, thought break, or as an instance of filigree or flourish". (None can said to be "more correct" than the others.)

The name of this narrative device (regardless of how it's indicated, if at all) is ellipsis, which, "in narrative leaves out a portion of the story. This can be used to condense time, or as a stylistic method to allow the reader to fill in the missing portions of the narrative with their imagination."

Laurel
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In typesetting they are called section breaks and may be represented simply by an extra blank line between paragraphs or maybe decorative and use typographic symbols determined by the publishers style guide.

The typesetter uses section breaks to demark scene breaks that the author wrote into their story to indicate the end of a scene. Scene breaks can indicate a passage of time, forwards or backwards, but may also mean a change of POV, or change in setting, or both.

In standard manuscript format, a scene break is a single hash mark centered on an otherwise empty line.

This format is widely preferred for submissions to agents and publishers for novels and short stories. The format is so ubiquitous that manuscripts might be rejected out of hand for not adhering to the standard.

EDL
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