Hello all
When a period of time passes in a story, you often see an asterisk (*) in between the paragraphs showing the end of one period of time to the beginning of another. My question is do you think this is necessary when only two weeks have passed?
There is no absolute. Think in terms of punctuation - comma, full stop, paragraph, chapter. The section break should only be used to tell the reader this is a greater pause in reading than a new paragraph, but not as much as a new chapter. It will vary from story to story, book to book. Some books contain no section breaks at all because, for those particular plots, they have not been needed. In fact, I have read books where section breaks of varying depth have been used to denote a varying intense of pause, and it works. It will work, providing it is in context to the overall telling of the story.
Depends on the pace of the story, the context, and the subject matter. A 'section break' gap between paragraphs, whether determined by space only or a symbol, merely signifies a bigger break in the story than could be conveyed by a fresh paragraph alone. In terms of time, it might signify a month, a week, a day or just minutes. If it seems right, it probably is. The converse also applies.
I would use one. It's a 'section break'. I always use a tilda.