We'd like to use analytics cookies to understand which symbols people look up, so we know what to research next. They are not used for advertising and we set none of them unless you say yes. What we store.
A row of three spaced asterisks marking a scene break.
Also known as: Scene break, Three stars in a row, Three asterisks between paragraphs
Three asterisks in a line, centred. It marks a break in a narrative without announcing a new section, which is why fiction uses it constantly and reference books almost never.
Three asterisks set in a row and centred on their own line, marking a break between passages within a chapter.
Used where a blank line alone would be ambiguous — at a page break a blank line is invisible, and the asterisks are not, which is the practical reason the mark survives.
Three small asterisks in a horizontal row with wide spaces between them, centred on an otherwise empty line.
The plain row of three asterisks replaced the triangular arrangement.