Could you post an example?

I think you are changing breaks by '\n' instead "\n"
Note that there is a difference (The interpolation)
but an example could help to see what is wrong
Example 1:

$text = "How are you";
$break ='\n';
$text =~ s/\s/$break/g;
print $text;
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will print:

How\nare\nyou
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while
Example 2:

$text = "How are you";
$break ="\n";
$text =~ s/\s/$break/g;
print $text;
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will print:

How
are
you
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Hope this helps