Screenwriting 101: Jon Spaihts

“Very often, even if you are just telling what seems like a good tale, theme emerges in the polishing if it didn’t emerge in the structural work… and the final polish on a script is where an enormous percentage of its quality comes from. The last 5%, when you go through and give as many scenes as possible propulsive transitions into the scene that follows. When you remove as much exposition as you can so that no explanation is ever given twice and the story becomes an elegant framework. When you go through and find commonalities, or rhymes, or repetitions in the script and you emphasize them and make them elements of art, then very often you will find yourself reinforcing a theme, at first unconsciously and then consciously.”

— Jon Spaihts

From Go Into The Story interview, December 25, 2016