There's a similar anecdote Gillian Anderson recently revealed during an interview on the X-Files, saying Chris Carter had an OCD-like habit to write dialog to conform to certain text layout preferences (no widows[1]) in the script, which made for the show's distinctive style of dialog cadence.

1 = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widows_and_orphans

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rectang 13 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

"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.

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consumer451 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Here is the interview where she mentions it, with the correct timestamp, backed-up just enough to give it context.

https://youtu.be/d3bCel607lQ?t=1162

	▲	cpeterso 14 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		“Chris told me I mean that there was a particular way that we used to speak in the show that it that wasn't a normal rhythm and syntax. It was slightly backwards. which felt like it was almost part of the cryptic aspect of the series. “And it wasn't until we were working on this, I think, the second feature. I was sitting in a parked vehicle waiting to shoot and our showrunner and creator Chris Carter came up to me who was directing the feature and he said he looked at my sides where my lines were and he said, "Look, no widows." And I said, "What what are you talking about?" He said, "No, no widows on the paragraphs that each character has." the word went all the way to the end with the period. So, you didn't like end halfway through that line. So, it was a perfect So, it was a perfect rectangle. “So, the dialogue was designed visually. For nine years. [laughter] Wow. So, you're struggling. You're struggling with his OCD.

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diurnalist 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I also saw that interview, then out of curiosity I tried to find any evidence of this. There are some fan sites with ostensibly original X-Files scripts out there[1]. Looking through some written by Carter[2], I wonder if this is apocryphal, or if he was messing with her a bit.

[1]: https://www.boggsfiles.com/x-files-scripts-by-season/season-... [2]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BQbfRmeq3FsajjYcEuqDHv0kf2B...

	▲	consumer451 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Wow, thanks for doing this digging. In the interview Gillian recounts Chris Carter saying "Look, no widows." Maybe this was not the rule, but something that he had always strived for, so he felt the need to call it out as something cool?

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fasterik 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm also reminded of how David Milch supposedly wrote a lot of Deadwood in iambic pentameter. I only learned about this after seeing the show, but I did pick up the "Shakespearean" feel of some of the dialogue. Constraints often force creativity.

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xerox13ster 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I just realized I have nearly always avoided widows and orphans because it felt bad to write that way.

I wonder if I was ever taught to write this way and forgot, but I feel like I just learned the terms for the first time.