Why Your Scene Breaks Disappear in Ebooks (and How to Fix Them)

A scene break tells the reader that time has passed, the place has changed, or the point of view has switched. In print, it’s simple: leave a gap, or add a small ornament in the middle of the page.

In ebooks, scene breaks are one of the most common things to go wrong. Readers write to authors about scenes that “run together”, reviews mention confusing jumps, and an ornament that looked lovely on the author’s screen turns into an empty box on someone’s Kindle.

Here’s why it happens, and how to make sure your scene breaks show up everywhere.

Problem 1: The blank line that disappears

The most common scene break in a manuscript is an empty line between paragraphs. It works in print, where the page layout is fixed. In an ebook, it often doesn’t.

Ebooks reflow: the text moves to fit the screen and the reader’s chosen font size. If your blank line happens to land at the bottom of a screen, or the top of the next one, it simply vanishes. The reader turns the page and the new scene starts with no warning at all.

Some e-readers and conversion tools also squash several empty lines into one, or remove them entirely.

The fix: never rely on white space alone. Use something visible, like a symbol or ornament, so the break is clear wherever it lands on the screen.

Problem 2: Asterisks that look wrong

Typing three asterisks (* * *) on their own line is the classic fix, and it’s far better than a blank line. But typed asterisks can still go wrong:

• They lose their centring. If the centring came from your word processor, it may not survive the conversion to an ebook, leaving the asterisks stranded on the left.
• They get indented. Ebooks often indent the first line of every paragraph, and your asterisks are a paragraph too, so they end up slightly off-centre.
• They can be read as formatting. Some tools treat a line of asterisks as markup and turn it into something else.

The fix: use a proper scene break element, not a typed paragraph. A dedicated scene break is always centred, never indented, and looks the same throughout the book.

Problem 3: Ornaments that turn into empty boxes

Decorative symbols like ❦, ✦ or ⁂ look beautiful, but they depend on the reader’s device having a font that includes them. If it doesn’t, the reader sees an empty box, a question mark, or nothing at all.

This is especially common on e-ink e-readers, which ship with only a few fonts. A symbol that looks perfect on your laptop can be missing on a Kindle or Kobo.

There’s a second trap: some symbols, like hearts and stars, are shown as colourful emoji on phones and tablets. A delicate black heart in your chapter can turn into a bright red cartoon heart on an iPhone.

The fix: make sure the font containing the ornament is included in the ebook file itself, and avoid symbols that devices like to swap for emoji.

Problem 4: Image ornaments that vanish in dark mode

Some authors use a small picture as a scene break: a flourish, a feather, a tiny logo. Images avoid the font problem, but bring their own:

• Dark mode hides them. A black ornament on a transparent background disappears when a reader switches to a black page.
• They don’t scale with the text. When a reader makes the font larger, the image stays the same size, and can look tiny or oversized.
• They can be missing or blurry, especially after compression, or if the image wasn’t packed into the file correctly.
• Screen readers can’t announce them unless you add a description.

The fix: prefer text-based ornaments, which change colour with dark mode and scale with the reader’s font size. If you do use an image, test it in dark mode before you publish.

How to check your scene breaks before publishing

Whatever method you use, check it before you upload:

1. Look at the book on an e-ink screen and a phone. Use your formatting tool’s device preview, or Amazon’s free Kindle Previewer, to see both.
2. Switch to dark mode and check every ornament is still visible.
3. Change the font size and make sure breaks still stand out when they land at the top or bottom of a screen.
4. Search your manuscript for stray blank-line breaks that never got a symbol.

Doing it in Libba

In Libba, a scene break is its own element, not a typed line. Insert one from the insert menu, and it’s always centred, never indented, and styled the same way throughout the book.

You choose the style once, in your book’s design settings, and every scene break updates together. There are more than 300 ornaments, grouped by genre into 16 categories: hearts and flourishes for romance, daggers for thrillers, stars for science fiction, and plenty more. If you’d rather keep it simple, there are classic options too, like asterisks, dots and plain lines.

Libba’s ornaments are text, not images, so they change colour with dark and sepia mode and scale with the reader’s font size. When you export, Libba includes the font each ornament needs inside the ebook file, and steers clear of symbols that phones turn into emoji.

The device preview shows your scene breaks on a Kindle, a Kobo, an iPad and a phone, in light, sepia and dark modes, before you export.

Common questions

Is a blank line ever enough? Not in an ebook. It can disappear at the top or bottom of a screen, so always use a visible marker.

Are three asterisks old-fashioned? No, they’re a perfectly good choice. Just make sure they’re a proper scene break, not a typed paragraph, so they stay centred.

Should my scene breaks match my genre? They don’t have to, but a matching ornament is a small touch readers notice. A dagger in a thriller or a flourish in a romance makes the book feel designed rather than assembled.

Do scene breaks affect store approval? Not usually, but confusing scene changes are a common complaint in reader reviews, which matters just as much.

For more on getting the details right, see How to Format an EPUB for Amazon KDP.