By Pat Butler
On a sunny June morning in 2022, I stood at the first tee – delighted that we were able to play golf, even though the pandemic still hadn’t been declared over. Janet, a fellow Ladies’ Golf Club of Toronto member, said, “Oh Pat, I just loved your book. In fact, I think it would make a terrific movie!”
She’d heard me present to the Ladies’ book club that March which, sadly, was held using Zoom. It had been a challenge to truly engage with the 30 participants – to assess what each was thinking when their images were trapped in little rectangles on a screen.
Iguana Books published Through Her Opera Glasses in December 2021, and I could not be happier with the finished product.
As this historical novel is my sole foray into writing fiction, let me explain its origins.
At the age of 24, my late mother lived in Paris, studying French and voice at the Sorbonne. Sponsored by a wealthy aunt, she also enjoyed two grand tours of Europe – often in chauffeur-driven limousines. After her death, I discovered 78 letters that she’d written to her family in Montreal between August 1930 and June 1931. I quickly typed them up and was astonished by her astute observations of intra-war Europe and adventures I’d never even heard about. Like hearing Rachmaninoff at the piano…and Pablo Casals at the cello.
During the aforementioned pandemic, I filled several empty months of lockdown by inventing a narrative to weave among her letters. For example, having never known about my mother Betty’s romance with an Australian Cambridge law-student she met skiing in Switzerland, I took plenty of license imagining their growing attraction and blossoming romance. The letters sparked all kinds of “doings” for me to write about – to use a 1930s expression. My publisher, Iguana Books used two different fonts so the reader can visually make an easy distinction between Betty’s letters (being primary historical sources) and my narrative (complete fiction).
When subsequently having the book recorded as an audiobook, I asked the producer to use two different narrators for the same reason of making an easy distinction between voices.
I chose the opera glasses as a metaphor for Betty’s gaze.
The mother-of-pearl opera glasses pictured on the book’s cover were bought in Interlaken and presented to Betty at Christmas 1930. They now belong to me. They don’t actually magnify performer’s faces very well, but they would shut out other distractions on the stage, thereby helping the viewer to focus.
As I write in the book’s introduction:
“With her focus on the exciting life of theatre, restaurants, and travel, Betty missed what else was on the European stage at the time: the adjacent political tensions that were gradually building around her. Living in a bubble of luxury and thrilling experiences, her gaze was like sun shining on a wildflower while the tornado was forming just a mile away.”
As I am no history buff, several of my beta readers nudged me to add more pertinent historical facts. They pointed out that 1930-31 was a crucial time for political change in Europe: Mussolini was ruling Italy, Hitler was on the rise, injured veterans of the Great War begged on the streets of Paris, fascism was on display in the form of Blackshirts in Italy and Brownshirts in Germany. And the Great Depression caused plenty of belt-tightening by the upper classes. Betty writes that the finishing school where she lives is “rather shabby genteel.”
In 2026, fascism has re-appeared and is growing in several countries. Journalists point out parallels with the gradual rise of Nazism in the 1930s. We’ve been reminded of the frog who lingers in a gradually boiling pot of water. Changes in temperature are so gradual that he stays put, only realizing he’s about to perish when it’s too late to escape. The timing to write a screenplay is clearly now.
Transformation to screenwriter
Two superb handbooks: Crafty Screenwriting: Writing Movies That Get Made by Alex Epstein and Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting That You’ll Ever Need by Blake Snyder, landed on my desk. After locating screenwriting software online, I jumped in. It took about five months to produce Draft One, which I’ve shared with only one historian colleague.
His reaction was, “A good start, but it too closely resembles the book. Too much dialogue. A film shows masses of detail in a matter of seconds. A picture IS worth a thousand words. Show don’t tell. Try again.” All very valid points.
The first major change I made was to rename the characters. Now that the heroine was no longer my mother, I felt free to make all kinds of alterations in personality, talents, and ambitions. I shifted the timeframe from 1930-31 to 1937-38 so that World War II looms more closely. A newspaper headline reads, “CRISIS IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA—CHAMBERLAIN TO MEET HITLER.” I changed the ending.
By sheer coincidence, I’ve recently reconnected with a friend who has worked in the film industry and thinks this book has potential. She’s now my co-writer and mentor. We are both using the software used by professionals, Movie Magic Screenwriter. Rather than write a screenplay for a 110-minute movie, we’re working on a five-episode series, with each episode lasting 55 minutes. That format is extremely popular on streaming services and would make production much easier. The story moves around among locations: Montreal, London, Paris, Switzerland, Rome, etc.
Character Arcs
Character arcs drive what happens in a story, so its plot points gradually come into focus. Come to think of it, that’s the way real life works. Each of us has characteristics which change over time – buffeted by the world around us. For example, some people dissolve under pressure; others thrive and achieve amazing things.
Every scene in a movie must have character development, involve conflict (internal or external), and move the story forward. Being a scientist at heart, I usually think linearly. Initially, I expected that we’d map out all five episodes’ plotlines before beginning to write action and dialogue. Not so. My co-writer and I meet weekly and are still working on Episode 1. We’ve defined its beats, and are now developing the script based on the characters’ growth. Once Episode 1 is completed, we’ll carry on with the others.
As I write, I will visualize scenes from the camera’s point-of-view and aim to build tension from the viewer’s point-of-view. After all, “What’s going to happen next?” makes a movie, just like a book, compelling.
I’m realistic enough to know that the probability of The Opera Glasses being filmed with professional actors is less than one percent. But I’m having a blast and learning a ton along the way. It’s never too late to try something new!
About Pat
Pat Butler joined the world of industry, specializing in writing ironclad manufacturing procedures . Her first book, Write This Way (2009), was a manual to help any manager or business specialist write more clearly. As writing began creeping into her recreational time, Pat found she preferred non-fiction to crafting storylines. Following retirement and divorce, she took a Life Stories writing course and published an embellished memoir Thanks for Leaving Me about her transition from the devastating end of her forty-one-year marriage to the beginning of new marital bliss. WithThrough Her Opera Glasses (2021), Pat has invented an accompanying narrative to her mother’s found letters, proving that she is just as skilled at inventing storylines as writing training manuals. Pat and Toronto divorce lawyer David Frenkel co-authored a workbook-type resource to help readers recover from separation, divorce, or relationship breakdown, published as My Divorce Journal (2022).