Gavin F. Hurley, author of The Playbook of Persuasive Reasoning; Twitter @Gavin_F_Hurley

Halloween is quickly approaching. Although the current pandemic has pushed back the Halloween Kills cinematic release until 2021, some of us will still watch John Carpenter’s 1978 classic Halloween this October — as we do every October.

Carpenter’s genre-defining horror film certainly provides insights into suspenseful horror writing. But Halloween can also provide insights that apply beyond suspense and horror. Ultimately, Halloween can offer some practical wisdom that informs all types of writing, both fiction and nonfiction.

Minimalism

Halloween is a pretty pared down film. It focuses on Laurie Strode, a teenager in Illinois suburbia, pursued by her murderous older brother Michael Myers. The film’s scenes are fairly straight forward. A walk from school. A conversation on the phone. Some babysitting. Another conversation on the phone. Within all of these scenes, Michael Myers appears stoically in the background, unbeknownst to the characters. Once Laurie recognizes that this “boogeyman” is real, the action picks up. Laurie runs from house to house. She discovers dead bodies in one house — and battles him in another house.

Halloween is certainly a work of art, yet it is often not considered “art-house.” After all, there is nothing flowery about the film. Nothing gratuitous. There are essentially no special effects. And — sometimes we can forget this — virtually no overt bloodshed.

In this way, Carpenter crafted a minimalistic horror film. This doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have any style. Rather, it stylistically uses minimal style. Of course, his approach isn’t particularly revolutionary. Many other artists have embraced minimalism long before 1978 and continue to do so. American writer Ernest Hemingway did it. American writer Bret Easton Ellis still does it. Business writers do it. Web designers do it. Marketing writers do it. The idea has been around for a while. In fact, “plain style” was introduced centuries ago by the Attics, an ancient school of orators in classical Greece/Rome. Contradicting the opulent rhetoricians of the time, the Attics boldly proclaimed plain style as the most effective style. They celebrated simplicity as eloquence.

Halloween aligns with the Attics. Its “plain style” is effective. As an independent film, Halloween was produced on 325,000 dollars and grossed over 45 million dollars (70 million worldwide) upon its release. Halloween’s success did not depend on extravagant special effects or over-the-top action because it relied on the “less is more” principle. Its plot is straight forward. Its style is modest.

Depending on the type of writing, we can adhere to that principle too. After all, direct communication matters in this noisy day and age. Readers often appreciate writing that cuts through the noise. They appreciate writing that gets to the point. In this way, less can indeed be more. Halloween models that for us.

Negative space

Minimalism often depends on the strategic use of negative space — that is, deliberately employing emptiness. Emulating suspense master Alfred Hitchcock, Carpenter realized the rhetorical impact of emptiness when crafting suspense. In his audio commentary on the 25th year anniversary Halloween DVD, he even admits that Halloween doesn’t have much going on. He is absolutely right. In almost every scene, viewers merely wait for something to happen. In several scenes, viewers actually watch Dr. Loomis and Sheriff Brackett wait around for Michael Myers to show up. Yet, these scenes do not merely waste the viewers’ time. The scenes smartly connect the audience to the film. They build suspense and anticipation by offsetting the positive space. Once something does happen in the film, the action is that much more gripping and compelling.

Similarly, in our written compositions, we can strategically wield the emptiness of white space between words, sentences, and paragraphs. In this way, white space can be just as important as the language, sentences, and paragraphs themselves. After all, “empty space” can contrast — and emphasize — the filled space.

Clearly, negative space drives forward suspense within fiction; however, it can be used in all types of writing. Even within our nonfiction, we can build anticipation sentence by sentence. We can integrate more pregnant pauses into our prose. Or purposeful sentence fragments.

Or better yet.

Short paragraphs of sentence fragments. To drive emphasis. And entice our readers to keep reading.

Everyday humanity

In Halloween, Myers lurks in the background of virtually every scene, which makes it suspenseful and spooky. Yet, apart from the lurking Myers, these scenes illustrate typical suburban life in 1978, presumably relating to everyday viewers. Even Myers — despite his immortality and Dr. Loomis’s claim that Myers is “not a man” but “pure evil” — still appears to be human. He is not depicted as some kind of hideous otherworldly monster.

Halloween is all about people. Especially in the first half of the film, the film shows characters living typical everyday situations. Our writing can be built upon a similar foundation as well. To be effective, we don’t want to leave our audience behind through too much vague abstraction. If we decide to discuss more abstract subject matter, we can make it a point to eventually pivot toward something about people — and maybe include a everyday reference or practical takeaway. Although it may seem obvious, readers often enjoy reading about people who resemble themselves — or just people in general. It makes the writing relatable. That relatability is prioritized within Halloween. And it should probably be prioritized for us as well.

In sum

Purposeful simplicity is crucial when connecting to others. And it is not particularly easy to do. As Steve Jobs observed in 1998, “You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end, because once your there, you can move mountains.” Like Apple, Halloween was revolutionary in how it wielded minimalistic principles. In its own way, the film “moved mountains” within the industry, spurring an entire sub-genre of horror film (the “slasher” film) that dominated 1980s horror cinema. Halloween’s simplicity isn’t the result of lazy craftsmanship or underestimating its audience. Instead, Halloween deeply valued the audience experience — much like Apple deeply values its user experience.

In short, when watching scary movies this October, we can seek out the tactics featured in minimalist horror films — specifically in Halloween or more recent minimalist offerings like In the Tall Grass (2019), The Boat (2018), or Midsommar (2019; director’s cut 2020). All of these films showcase eloquence with their simplicity. And, depending on the type of writing that we do, we may want to use similar tactics to help craft compelling style and relatable content.