Reliable method for inserting an empty line? (Subtitle Edit)

[Asterra]

The thing I'm working on has many moments where lines of dialogue occur too soon after one another for it to be a good idea to instantly replace the previous subtitle with the next, so I'm needing to have moments where two lines are shown simultaneously. Obviously this means that it's a three-step process: Line 1 by itself is visible for X time; lines 1 and 2 together are visible for Y time; line 2 by itself is visible for Z time.

What I'm trying to avoid is the default behavior of the above scenario, which is to say that it forces all subtitles to the bottom of the screen. This behavior will cause line 1 to shift upwards one line when line 2 gets introduced. What I would rather do is have line 1 shifted upwards in the first place, so no adjustment is required when line 2 appears. This means I need a way of forcing an empty slot.

I do not know the syntax for getting this to work in Subtitle Edit. A simple carriage return in the text block gets ignored and removed. Now, hopefully obviously, what I don't want is to be forced to do something silly like have a visible . or - in the blank line, just to make Subtitle Edit happy.

[Ennio]

I wonder if this can be achieved with text-based subs altogether.

[El Heggunte]

This means I need a way of forcing an empty slot.
.............
Now, hopefully obviously, what I don't want is to be forced to do something silly like have a visible . or - in the blank line, just to make Subtitle Edit happy.

Does Subtitle Edit "swallow" a non-breaking space character
I mean, ALT+0160

[Asterra]

I read about that option before. Unfortunately, even trying to type that into Subtitle Edit causes it to implement some built-in alt commands. And the option doesn't even exist to copypaste the thing since there's nothing to copy/paste.