Episode 183 – Journey Back to Liadon

A pencil, a ball point pen, and a quill sitting in lounge chairs drinking coffee; Title: Writers Drinking Coffee

We welcome back Sharon Lee and Steve Miller to talk about their 25th Liadon book – Salvage Right, from Baen Books. They tell us about the space station that straddles two realities, as we debate where the cats might come in and own the place. There’s also an in-depth discussion of the dinkus and the telling detail, so you can learn something new!

Mentions from Episode 183:

That terribly important word(?) about two blank lines or three hashes or stars (researched by Chaz):

“Space between paragraphs in a section break is sometimes accompanied by a dinkus, an asterism (⁂), a horizontal rule, fleurons (❦), or other ornamental symbols. An ornamental symbol used as section break does not have a generally accepted name.”

From the Wiki article on Typography

“In typography, a dinkus is a typographic symbol which often consists of three spaced asterisks in a horizontal row, i.e.   ∗ ∗ ∗  . The symbol has a variety of uses, and it usually denotes an intentional omission or a logical “break” of varying degree in a written work. This latter use is similar to a subsection, and it indicates to the reader that the subsequent text should be re-contextualized. When used this way, the dinkus typically appears centrally aligned on a line of its own with vertical spacing before and after the symbol. The dinkus has been in use in various forms since c. 1850. Historically, the dinkus was often represented as an asterism, ⁂, though this use has fallen out of favor and is now nearly obsolete.”

From a separate article on the dinkus

“If a dinkus is “often” three spaced asterisks, then clearly it is sometimes other symbols instead. I feel that this must be the word we use, hereafter.”

~C. Brenchley. I have spoken.