One page at a time… A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder
What makes compelling writing? Looking at some of the books on my bookshelves that I immediately think for good storytelling. Top of my list is "A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder" by Holly Jackson
As a writer, reading can be a knife-edge between praising technique and wishing for better. The real book gems are the ones that pull you in so quick you don’t have time to focus on the technique. One minute you read a page and the next it's 2am and you have work in the morning, and you’re still not putting the book down.
As an A* perfectionist who obsesses over a topic until my head hurts, I thought I would start with top student, Pip’s, story. “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder”* by Holly Jackson is the book I turn to when I want to remind myself how to nail an opening.
*Note: I am referencing the UK 2019 print of the book. Looking online, It seems the first page may have changed since this first printing (or for US print).
A: That first line
So, let’s discuss that first line.
“Pip knew where they lived.”
I mean, what a hook to grasp the reader. Holly has managed to 1. introduce the main character, 2. Introduce a sense of urgency and 3. Get the reader wanting to know who ‘they’ are.
1. Introducing the main character:
Making Pip the first word and first name of the novel means we know who we are following. Pip is who we are rooting for throughout the book (and the trilogy), so it makes sense she is front and centre here.
2. Introduce a sense of urgency:
Why does Pip need to know where they live? What is important about where they live? And, most what is going to happen with this information? This is a Chekov’s gun of a line. It sets up the fact that something is going to happen between Pip and whomever ‘they’ are. Which leads me on to…
3. Get the reader wanting to know who ‘they’ are:
This is the main question of this introductory line. Who is this ‘they’? Holly makes sure to answer this three paragraphs later with “just three sad people trying to live their lives as before.” But this introductory line makes the ‘they’ here are as important as Pip. In fact, almost half the first page introduces who ‘They’ are. This means we know more about them and their relationships to the town around them than we do Pip. At this moment of the novel, 'they' are the most important people.
B: The vibes are off.
Without knowing the title, reading the blurb, or seeing the cover, this page tells you what to expect from the novel. Why? The words Holly has used to evoke the scene in the first ‘proper’ paragraph on this page:
· Own haunted house
· Footsteps quickened
· Strangled
· Died
· Shrieking
· Daring
We’re not evoking a cuddly atmosphere here; this is one of danger, death and murder. We’re looking at a scene built from images of hauntings and shrieks, unease and fear.
Not to mention the town itself is called Little Kilton (little kill town?), which we find out in the second line. We’re primed now to read this story knowing it’s going to be dark and darker still, and we’re not even halfway down the page.
C: Scum family
Finally, we find out who the ‘they’ are that the first line is referencing. And we're primed to learn that the Singhs are not model citizens of Little Kilton. They’re the Scum Family. Yet, we’re not introduced to them as awful people: our introduction to the Singh family is with sympathy. They are “just three sad people trying to live their lives as before.”
This may be Holly writing, but we’re getting more than a description here; we’re getting to see how Pip sees this family. As the only character we know by name, Pip is our stand-in for being in the scene ourselves. She's standing and looking at the Singh house and seeing “dark spray-painted letters of Scum Family and stone-shattered windows". Rather than thinking the family deserve it, Pip’s thoughts show her sympathy: “Pip had always wondered why they didn’t move.”
D: Navigated around the scene
We start with a zoomed-out view of what the house looks like. Then we move closer towards what Pip is thinking, landing in her head and hearing her own thoughts. This use of psychic distance moves the reader with Pip to observe the world before focusing on her thoughts. Then it pushes the reader out again with Pip’s final thought “But she didn’t know how they lived like that.”
E: Living ghosts
This final line is doing a lot of heavy lifting, because it’s setting up two things: 1. A juxtaposition to what came before it and 2. The next question Pip (and the reader) needs to find the answer to.
But both these are actually the same question and answer. What came before was all about death. And in these descriptions of death, we were told these three sad people were ghosts or living in a haunted house three times. Ghosts are not part of the living. So the unspoken answer to this question is already on the page; The Singhs are not living, not yet. But Pip asking this question sets her up as a catalyst to find out and give them a life again. Pip is here to change their lives; she is the inciting incident to the Singhs. And they are the inciting incident to her story. Pip and the Singhs are going to set each other’s lives moving in a different direction, hopefully for the better.
E: Who is Pip?
The final paragraph focuses in on Pip, giving us an idea of who she is, and further insight into how she thinks. We learn that she has a penchant for weird facts and trivia. But we also learn that she is aware of what she doesn’t know; how the Singhs can stay in Little Kilton.
This isn’t because she doesn’t want to know; it’s because her level of empathy is so high she can’t imagine having the strength to live there. Here, we’re not only learning more about the treatment of the Singhs, but Pip’s own emotions and limits. She can’t comprehend how the Singhs live here because it hurts too much to; she can’t imagine facing that pain.
But, over on the next page, two paragraphs down (yes, it’s not quite on the first page, I know), we have these lines:
“Pip…rested her hand on the front gate, instantly braver than half the town’s kids.”
Pip recognises the things she finds painful, and then pushes through to face them anyway. Her actions aren't brave because she is walking up to the Singh’s house, it’s because she is pushing past her own limits.
A good guide
In the first page of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, we have a good idea of plot, genre, character and place, and the character has yet to take a step.
Time to go take these ideas and apply them to my own first page...