[Discussion] How do you split parts up?

[Palamon]

When writing, sometimes you see ***, --- or other types of symbols that separate parts up in a fanfiction.
Usually, I use three asterisks

***

Like that and use it to separate things into "acts". If a day passes in the story, or I'm switching to another scene, I always use three asterisks to separate them. Since I write stuff that's usually between 2-8k words, I need to separate things into "acts" often. I just use three asterisks and end a "scene" or "act" as I call them with a one liner and then use the three asterisks.

I personally, cannot write something without separating things with three asterisks. It helps for me to illustrate the scene, day or setting is changing, but I understand if most people don't do this. Since my stuff is long, I like to use them. It can even give my readers a break, if they need, if you get me.

 

[Finneari]

I do this too! My chapters often split easily into several parts, each made up of different scenes. I write mostly webfiction, though, so it's sometimes better to actually split whatever it is into two separate posts. It can be hard to tell when that's appropriate, though.

It's pretty common in books I read, too. Some authors never use them or use them exceedingly sparingly. Others use them far more often. Sometimes it's asterisks or another symbol, sometimes it's extra space between the end of one part and the beginning of the next paragraph.

 

[Aquacorde]

I don't do this often, actually. It's a useful tool but I tend to fall more on the side of just moving to a new chapter rather than making a distinct cut in that way. When I do go this route, though, I opt for either a horizontal rule or characters that I think look nice. Gotta be centered, of course, 'cause I think it gets lost in the rest of the text otherwise. My recent go-to has been

⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡​

but asterisks are quick and neutral so they're nice as well. I also like the look of

►►►​

sometimes~

 

[Vragon2.0]

For just small passes in time for one person's POV I just do extra spaces. For things like scene shift or POV shift, I do < O >. I used to do other ones, but since I'm trying to make my writing more ingrained in flow (so I don't have to make some things obvious via calling card signs) I phased them out to just this one.

Unfortunately, it is a pain on sites that think '<' and '>' are proof I'm a hacker.

 

[moon]

oOo

is probs what i've used, but fanfiction writing is literally the only time i do this

 

[Venia Silente]

what, no one using "owo"? ^_^

Since we're in a world of rich text format, I personally just use whatever the equivalent to the long horizontal line (HTML's "hr") is, or something that resolves to id, such as "----" in markup languages like Markdown.

But honestly using something like "⟡⟡⟡⟡" doesn't sound like a bad idea.

 

[gimmepie]

In large RP posts or fics I'll use the

---

tag to create a page break line or put the three asterisks in if a chapter needs to be subdivided. In my book, I use something similar to Anna's ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡ ⟡.

On a related note though, I think a lot of the time where people divide a long chapter into sub-parts like this, they should actually be splitting into more chapters. I don't think a chapter should move around to too many different locations/time periods within itself. It makes the story feel long-winded and less dynamic. A lot of fic writers especially have a problem with this imo.

A shorter chapter isn't a bad thing. Especially if it makes the story read better.

 

[Bay]

Because I post several sites I actually go with "xxx" so I don't have to change the dividers for each site. I know AO3 uses <hr> and it's much clearner so maybe I should do that instead.

 

[Venia Silente]

I know AO3 uses <hr> and it's much clearner so maybe I should do that instead.

Another advantage is that many BBCode sites understand "[ hr][ /hr]" or flat out just "[ hr]" (without the space ofc) so adapting those section cuts across the AO3/HTML and PC/BBCode boundary is one (1) (uno) search-and-replace away, just like the normal typographical format tags.