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"No widows" on its own isn't enough to create a distinctive dialog cadence. "Widows" (alone at the top) and "orphans" (alone at the bottom) are single lines cu
by rectang 26d ago
"No widows" on its own isn't enough to create a distinctive dialog cadence.
"Widows" (alone at the top) and "orphans" (alone at the bottom) are single lines cut off from the rest of a paragraph by a column/page break. The solution is generally just to fiddle with column/page breaks, which is purely typographical.
I'm sure that there's a distinct identity to X-Files dialog; it's just not due to this quirk.
I can totally see a fellow typography geek bragging about this to someone and them being horrified haha.
ETA: I speculate that Carter was avoiding "widows" to be considerate to the actors by not splitting lines across page turns.
- frereubu 26d agoI had the same thought, but I think the idea is that it didn't so much create a specific cadence as the cadence was a bit odd because the language needed to fit the visual layout rather than feel natural when spoken.
- raffael_de 26d agothe distinctive cadence is not a direct consequence from eliminating widows but from the mental process used to achieve this efficiently. language goes from natural fluidity to stacking Lego bricks.