in Design
Forty-eight signs
Scene breaks in Dreamscape Code aren't blank lines. They are the Code: a set of signs drawn for the book.
Most novels mark a scene break with a blank line, or a centred asterisk, or a small ornament borrowed from a type catalogue. Dreamscape Code uses something drawn for it: the Code, a set of forty-eight signs. The signs mark the chapters and return at every scene break.
Why not a blank line
A blank line is the most invisible scene break there is, which is its virtue and its problem. When it falls at the foot of a page it disappears altogether, and the reader walks from one scene into the next without noticing the door. Typesetters have always had to patch that by hand.
A visible sign solves it outright. It also gives the break a character. In a book whose title contains the word code, the breaks between scenes are a chance to put a code on the page.
How the signs are made
Each sign is drawn as a small vector mark, so it prints sharply at any size. The print interior carries eighteen scene breaks, each checked against the manuscript. In the ebook the signs are drawn in the text colour, like all the book's artwork, so they follow the reader's chosen theme.
What a break should do
A blank line asks the reader to notice nothing. A sign asks them to notice that something has changed, which is exactly what a scene break is for.