Typesetting: Orphans and Widows

Not sure if this is a better fit here or in Art & Design. More typography threads seem to have appeared here so...

I've been reading up on typesetting for a while and I've reached the point where I'm comfortable enough with the concepts and tools to take a crack at POD of some of my short stories. (I don't really expect them to sell much, but this is more for the learning experience and having a physical copy for myself than anything.)

I've reached the point of deciding how to deal with widows and orphans.

The single line at the end or beginning of a page hasn't turned out to be much trouble. I've found I dislike mismatched lines on facing pages more than I dislike a widow or orphan but have been able to solve these cases with minor tracking changes. So far so good.

Where the problem comes in is in-page orphans where the last word of a paragraph is on a line by itself.

I generally have short paragraphs and this occurs a LOT. Sometimes minor tracking adjustments are enough, but not always. On some paragraphs, the cure is worse than the disease to my eye. Lines will be too packed, or too loose compared to other lines on the page.

So I hunted up a few high-profile fiction books on my shelf to examine what the pros do.

And I found that they don't seem all that biased against allowing end-of-paragraph orphans. They appear about as frequently as they do on my pages.

This is diametrically opposed to the advice that widows and orphans make you look like a newb.

So is this perhaps an old-school vs new-school thing that's changed over time?

Is it perhaps less frowned upon in fiction and the advice is directed at some other print media?

Is the advice more strict about end/beginning of page widows/orphans without explicitly mentioning it?

Was my sampling of books perhaps not representative?

Twick said:

I've never heard of any particular prohibition against orphans in paragraphs. That seems to be an inevitable result of how many words you use.

Orphans at page end are annoying to printers, because they waste paper and leave huge white spaces. One word at the end of a paragraph doesn't have that effect.

Click to expand...

Some designers disagree. (I'm not advocating this position, just stating it.)

Here are a couple articles that include representative commentary for anyone interested:

http://www.edgee.net/five-rookie-and-sometimes-seasoned-pro-typography-mistakes-i-see-everywhere/

http://www.edgee.net/five-techniques-for-fixing-widows-and-orphans-using-indesign-illustrator/

A few aside oddities I've noticed. Some sources don't even define the end-of-paragraph variety as a widow/orphan (which gives some credence to your point.) And designers themselves seem to argue which items are "widows" and which are "orphans" so if the terminology confuses just look at the perdy pichers like I do.

Back to your point, yep inevitable, but apparently some designers will spend the time on the paragraph formatting such that the situation doesn't occur. I'm not sure it was the article I just linked or not (I've read quite a few) but one went so far as to recommend reformatting to and extent that the last line is no less than half the column width.

That seems excessive to me. Honestly, I'm leaning toward leaving it alone (along Polenth's line of thinking,) but I'm open to someone with vastly more experience than me showing up here and explaining why I'm choosing unwisely. It's happened before ... to my benefit.

@Polenth: The chapter starting on the right-side (recto?) page seems to have transitioned from rule into style choice somewhere along the line. Agree with your point about copying trades as a counterpoint to advice. The research still helps a lot in picking up the things I might never have noticed in the first place.