When I use Scrivener, I’m able to add *** as a separator between scenes in a single folder (one chapter) however, there are certain scenes where I do not wish to have a separator but just a blank space.
Is it possible to assign custom separators to specific scenes when compiling?
thanks,
Are we really talking about separators here?
The Scrivener brain trust seems to refer to separators as indicators in the editor that help the writer visualize where documents begin and end, but which are invisible to the reader when compiled.
It’s a pretty great feature, and you have three choices. Sometimes I like one choice better than the other choice, and sometimes I don’t. So I use one version in Standard text Mode and a different version in Scriptwriting Mode (although I’m not writing scripts).
That way, I can toggle back-and-forth using a simple shortcut.
Correct me if I’m misunderstanding, but it sounds like what you might be referring to is how to present text directly to the reader.
It’s common to use a simple blank line between scenes, or to show gaps of time internal to a scene, or even significant changes in location (which typically imply a gap in time).
That can be done with just a carriage return.
A line separating parts of text that has an image on it, or three asterisks on it, is technically known as a dinkus.
Those can be used in place of a carriage return, and they are usually used to signify an even greater psychological separation between scenes in fiction, when there are multiple scenes in a chapter. It’s good not to use this very often, and use just a carriage return most of the time.
The way to create a dinkus in Scrivener is pretty simple. Just add an image to your list of images in the research folder. If you make the image about 45 points high, that will probably be about what you’re looking for. For example: <$img:dinkus;h=45> can be inserted where you would otherwise just put a carriage return, if you have an image in your research folder entitled ‘dinkus’.
Not exactly pretty in the editor, but it appears in the compiled version.
Hi - thanks for responding. I don’t use or need separators *** in screenplays at all. The separators I’m referring to one would be in the novel where a POV shift occurs in on chapter. So I use the *** in a chapter and set it up in the separators feature of the compiler.
However, part of my novel has a few diary entries and for those entries, I like to have a separate text file under a chapter. For these entries, I just want a blank line.
Now for the other chapters - the ones that don’t involve diary entries, and when the POV shift occurs, I like to have a *** between the POV shifts. For this solution, I created a text file and just entered *** centralized and inserted that file between two chapters.
I wish there was a better way of doing it but I don’t see how.
thanks.
The iOS version has nothing approaching the sophistication necessary to carry off that kind of document production. It’s best to leave that kind of stuff for when you use the Mac or PC, as it is meant more for writing on the go.
In US English; ‘Dinkus’ doesn’t exist as a word in GB English. I don’t know its status in the other Englishes of the world.
Mark
I have to say, it sounds distinctly Australian in origin. 
I’ve always used asterism, although that is more specific to breaks using asterisks in some arrangement.
Well, Mark, the Great Bob Dylan once said, ‘You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows’.
Of all the profound things he said, this is among the most profound.
You also don’t need a dictionary to get a definition.
For instance, Scrivener knew that they needed to create a large number of buzzwords so that they could define the things that they are talking about in their instructional material.
Certainly nothing wrong with that, it was something that was necessary. But if you try to look many of those words up in a dictionary, you won’t find definitions that match their definition.
That is because the general world is not focused on writing or writing programs and how they work. Scrivener has to be.
And they are free to define this concept using whatever term they feel works for them. They don’t have to use the term ‘dinkus’, and they probably haven’t. They don’t need to. It’s somewhat out of the scope of what Scrivener is all about.
My best guess is it was very likely just a throwaway word that some a famous writer began using, that caught on. The operative phrase there is ‘caught on’. Because it did. And it is the commonly accepted definition among those in the writing world.
I’m the last person to say that you can ‘go to the Internet and get the truth’, but you can go to the Internet and get countless explanations as to what the word 'dinkus’means.
And pretty much all of them are going to be the same, and pretty much all of them are going to support that concept directly, and faithfully.
So ‘dinkus’ means exactly what I said in my original post. Simply because Merriam-Webster never mentions it, in no way indicates that that is not the definition accepted by those of us who are focused on the world of writing and literature. In the world of literature, it is most definitely the definition, and the Internet is just one more way to prove that, because nearly everything on the Internet supports that idea.