When there is a multiline template, you can make it look natural within json_doc = '''{}''' % some_dictionary and then populate json_doc via %(some_dictionary

When there is a multiline template, you can make it look natural within json_doc = '''{}''' % some_dictionary and then populate json_doc via %(some_dictionary_key)s values inside of the brackets. I find it more readable. Furthermore, json_doc can now live elsewhere, if sizeable, and get imported. I guess that template strings may be the newer way to do this, but this is very backward compatible.