Answer #3

EQ: What is the best way to write a successful screenplay?

Answer 3: The best way to write a successful screenplay is to seduce the reader/audience in the first 10 pages, or at the 10% mark.

Evidence: 1. When you're trying to sell your screenplay it is already hard to get someone to even open it, let alone read it. So it essential to seduce the reader so that they will continue to read through the rest of the screenplay. 2. You often hear "grab your reader in the first ten pages". That statement is misleading because if you're writing a love story that has little to no action and think that you need to "grab" the reader then you might think that an action sequence or something flashy and uneccessary should be in the first ten pages. It should not. You also have to be mindful that you must introduce your characters and a significant change in the hero's everyday life by this time. The most difficult part of this whole process is to weave everything together. Somwhere in the first 10% of your screenplay you must introduce characters, their current situations, the setting,  etc. This answer is as good as any other answer: have a strong leading character, good plot that is moved by outer motivations and desires, great drama, a satisfying climax and ending, blah blah blah etc. The only difference is that before the reader can read and realize any of those other aspects - which are great answers as well- they either read it or don't. Without being persuaded to continue to read the screenplay they cannot realize the other things that I have mentioned make a good screenplay.

Source: Every screenplay that I have read: Annie Hall, Citizen Kane, Shakespeare in Love, A Knight's Tale, and the book Writing Screenplays That Sell by Michael Hauge.