A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (2024)

It’s the Summer holidays, but teenager Pip Fitz-Amobi is focused on an unusual school research project. In Little Kilton five years ago, schoolgirl Andie Bell went missing. Her boyfriend Sal Singh sent a text confessing to the murder before being found dead, seemingly taking his own life. Andie’s body was never found. Case closed. However, Pip isn’t so sure and is determined to prove Sal’s innocence.

The six-part series is based on Holly Jackson’s smash hit novels and was filmedwas filmed in and around Somerset, England.

Watch A Good Girl's Guide to Murder on BBC iPlayer from Monday 1 July

What was your journey into scriptwriting and writing for television? Was that through theatre, prose or other kinds of writing? Was it something you always wanted to do and what inspired you to write initially?

It was always my intention to be a writer. I was very bookish and I read compulsively as a child, anything and everything. My Dad's an English teacher and writing and writers were always revered in my house, whereas TV was seen as frivolous and quite strictly controlled. As such it was a bit of a guilty pleasure - glamorous and escapist.

I studied English at university but worked in advertising in my twenties - I couldn't really see a way of making a living as a writer at that stage. It was when I had kids in my late twenties and I took some time off work to be at home with them that I decided to give it a go. I started a novel and found it very difficult and then my father in law showed me a competition in a magazine that asked for a screenplay and I entered it. I found the process of writing a screenplay a revelation.The visual way of storytelling just seemed to fit and I ended up winning the competition. That was enough to give me the confidence to give up the proper job and push for this thing that had always felt like a distant dream.

Was it a struggle to get started writing professionally? What steps did you take and what setbacks were there along the way?

It really was and I say this as someone whose husband was able to take the financial load while I was getting started. Other people obviously have it much harder than I do. But it was still a struggle and not just financially but finding the brain space. I had three children under four when I started and it took a long time to get to a position where it felt like a sustainable career.

I wrote a film called The Fold which got made in 2013 but I still didn't have an agent or really an understanding of the industry as a whole. What I did have was a sense that I knew finally what I wanted to do and that I was quite good at it. I applied to the BBC drama writers room (Open Call) and got shortlisted but it wasn't until I found my agent Julia Tyrrell who has been such a massive supporter and cheerleader that my career really took off. By then I was forty and had a strong sense of my own voice - I wrote a great TV pilot and that really opened up the doors for me.

Looking back at what a long road it's been I can't believe I stuck with it but I was absolutely obsessed with the writing, always trying to get better at the craft of it - it's a compulsion really and that's probably a prerequisite.

When did you first feel that you could call yourself a ‘writer’?

It's probably the paycheck that does it I think.

Were you aware of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder before becoming involved in adapting it for TV? What struck you about the book when you read it?

My kids had read it and really liked it so I knew about it from them. It had hints of Serial about it which I loved and Pip was such a strong character who felt different to other YA (Young Adult) heroines - she's unapologetically herself, not afraid to be a bit of a nerd. And then the plot was genuinely twisty and surprising. The author Holly Jackson really is a master of plot.

How did you get asked to adapt the book and which qualities do you think makes it a good book to adapt for the screen?

Florence Walker, my brilliant producer at Moonage, had read the book at manuscript and knew immediately that it had huge potential. I'm not sure where she'd got my name from but she approached my agent and as soon as I read it I could see the TV show. I think the things you look for in an adaptation are a strong central character who can carry the emotional story as well as the action, and who kind of embodies the themes that you are looking to explore. Pip is absolutely that. Then, it sounds like an obvious thing but I'm a great sucker for TV as entertainment. A Good Girl's Guide to Murder is a really entertaining and brilliant murder mystery. It's a teen show but the stakes are high and the plot is sophisticated. To be honest it felt like a gift. I feel so lucky to have been part of it.

What are the major challenges for adapting the novel?

The novel was such a hit and had such an emotional connection to its fans that it felt like a huge responsibility to do it justice. So that was the first challenge and then there were some more executional challenges that we had to think about. Part of the charm of the book is that it is written in quite a graphic style. It has interview transcripts, typed up notes, handwritten post-its, which give the book a fun visual feel. Of course, we needed to find a different way to get the information across on the screen, everything needed to come to life. Another big challenge was working out what we should leave out. We’ve only got six 45-minute episodes, and there's a lot of material in the book so it was about honing that, figuring out what was okay to leave out and what we needed to keep. It was a challenge, but Holly was really helpful with this.

Did you liaise closely with the book’s author Holly Jackson during the adaptation process?

Holly has been very closely involved all the way through. She gave notes on the scripts and was really helpful at checking that the complicated plot still hung together. She has quite a strong and unique bond with her fan base and it was hugely important to us that we didn't disappoint them and stayed true to the book while also making the best TV show we possibly could. We couldn't have done it without Holly. I think and hope that she's really pleased with the way it's come together.

Did you set up a writers’ room or work with co-writers? How did that process work?

Yes, we had a writers' room where myself and the three other episode writers Ajoke Ibironke, Zia Ahmed and Ruby Thomas storylined the show with Anna Hargreaves, our script editor at Moonage and Florence. Then we went away and wrote our episodes. I wrote three and the other writers wrote one each.

We tried to theme each episode so that there's a real feeling of escalation through the show, of jeopardy and darkness building as Pip delves deeper into the secrets of her town. We had all read the book forensically but in the plotting of the show we had to almost do away with the book and work it out as a TV show then return to the book to check that the key plot points fitted into the new structure. It was great fun but took a lot of attention to detail. Holly was great at making sure we hadn’t missed anything important.

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder has been a hit on social media, including TikTok. Why do you think it has chimed with younger readers? What do you think it is about its tone, voice, subject matter, or the location or characters that has resonated or is in the zeitgeist, not just for a UK audience?

I think although it's fiction, it scratches that true crime itch which is so popular at the moment. I also think that Pip is a very modern heroine. She's smart, a bit of a nerd but she's not damaged, or a loner. She's funny and brave and a little bit wholesome. Then there's her relationship with Ravi who she teams up with to solve the mystery, and there's something about their friendship/romance which seems to have struck a chord with the audience. People have gone crazy for Pipravi as they call it

Where is the book (and adaptation) set and how important is that location? Did the world of the book feel familiar to you?

The book is set in a small English town called Little Kilton. I've always loved those American shows set in the suburbs, from Twin Peaks to Desperate Housewives where things look so idyllic on the surface but there's something lurking... and Little Kilton feels like our English version of that; picture perfect on the surface but with a dark underbelly. Dolly Wells the director and the production team really brought that world to life beautifully.

Do you think the other books in the trilogy could also be coming to screen?

I hope so.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve been given or could share?

Here are a few pieces of my own advice:

• Don't limit yourself to just writing from experience, that's what your imagination is for - and research.
• Remember people will always want great storytelling. Whatever your story is, make it entertaining or no one will want to read it.
• Be playful, don't be afraid to explore genre and tone and try to find your own unique voice.
• Then write the pilot of the show you want to watch. Chances are, someone else will want to watch it too.