Point-of-View Breaks

[Reaves]

Point-of-view breaks. I know I am using the wrong phrase here. What I basically mean here is when in reading a book the author skips two lines and starts a new paragraph, almost always fast-forwarding in time to the next event. When you are writing using the "official" format, it looks like this:

#             #                #               #               #              #              #                 #                #               #               #             #              #             #

How often do you think this technique should be used? Often I find myself making a break and then completely switching characters to talk about something different. Should I be writing a whole new chapter then? Is this a good technique? Can it be used too much?

I find myself using these breaks several times in a chapter, usually around three times. Opinions?

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Standard manuscript format is to use just one #.

Different authors do this different ways. It all depends on what you're going for. Brandon uses short chapters, and while he may switch POV several times within a chapter, everything's usually taking place in the same location or very close by (at least that's what I'm noticing in MB3). Other authors prefer their chapters to be longer and are OK with switching POV to multiple locations. Yet other authors have numbered subsections within each chapter and multiple scene breaks within each subsection (though this may have gone out of style in recent years).

The question is basically one of pacing. Brandon's way helps keep the book moving along snappily. If you don't want your book to seem like it's going by quickly, using longer chapters and longer scenes will do that for you.