It could be that you have your code looking like...
<p>p>*</p>
<p>p>*</p>
<p>p>*</p>
That would give you the look you are seeing instead of...
* * *
The code you want instead of three lines is...
<p class="center">* * *</p>
in CSS...
.center {
margin-top: 0.8em;
margin-bottom: 0.8em;
text-align: center;
text-indent: 0;
}