Often in novels (and other written works, though I'm personally most familiar with them from novels), within a chapter you'll find a little glyph that marks a transition to a different scene.
Usually it is centered, and has at least a couple of blank lines both preceding and following it, thus:
⁂
or:
❧❧❧
I had thought there was an official name or at least broadly-accepted term for these marks, but Wikipedia's article on Typographic Sections claims:
Space between paragraphs in a section break is sometimes accompanied by an asterism (either proper ⁂ or manual * * *), a horizontal rule, fleurons, or by other ornamental symbols.
An ornamental symbol used as section break does not have a generally accepted name. Such a typographic device can be specifically referred to as dinkus, space break symbol, paragraph separator, paragraph divider, horizontal divider, thought break, or as an instance of filigree or flourish.
Is that true?
Please note: I am asking for the name of the general typographic convention, not the specific glyphs. So the symbol names asterism (⁂), or dinkus (***) are inadequate.
