Holly Jackson: “Of course I love murder – fictional murder”

Bestselling author Holly Jackson reveals her secrets for the plot of a modern crime novel – and explains how true crimes have influenced her.

For the author of “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder,” writing a crime novel is just as meticulous as solving a crime.

“I’m obsessed with it,” she says. “I don’t have a real ‘murder board’ because it’s not on the wall, it’s on the floor.”

Each scene in one of Holly’s books corresponds to an index card, which is then carefully placed in columns for each act of the story. The author admits that this “takes up quite a bit of space.”

While this is great for plot planning, Holly says that if she opens her office door “a little too violently,” her plot can literally go off the rails.

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder follows courageous heroine Pip Fitz-Amobi as she investigates a solved murder. Pip soon finds a co-detective in Ravi Singh, whose brother was involved in the crime.

Every clue, every twist in the story has been discussed at length by Holly’s fans on TikTok; the hashtag for A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder – #agggtm – has more than 58,000 posts.

The Guardian called the series a “very modern Nancy Drew” and fans praised the show on TikTok, supplementing their reactions with clips from the new series.

The BBC spoke to Holly about the process of writing her successful novel. “Of course I love murder,” she says, “fictional murder.”

Holly, 31, from Buckinghamshire, published her debut in 2019. The following year, she won a British Book Award and sold millions of copies worldwide.

Although her novels tend to fall into the category of young adult literature, Holly does not shy away from more serious topics such as crime. Her first novel, for example, is about the disappearance and apparent murder of a schoolgirl.

And Holly says true crime content – like the podcast Serial – became a “very useful” tool when writing A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. The structure of the book is reminiscent of a podcast, says Holly, adding: “We have transcripts of dialogue all the time.”

In the sequel to Holly’s first book – “Good Girl, Bad Blood” – Pip even creates her own true crime podcast.

And Holly says that this research tool soon seeped into her real life as well. “I can’t really do anything without a true crime podcast,” she says. “When I’m walking the dog or washing the dishes, I need a true crime podcast in my ears.”

In the last decade, true crime series have gained international recognition: Serial won a Peabody Award in 2015 and In The Dark – a long-running investigative journalism series – was the first podcast to win a George Polk Award in 2019. And according to the New York Times, Serial has been downloaded over 705 million times.

Even Holly is curious why crime novels are such a popular source of entertainment.

“Especially with young women,” she asks herself, “is there some kind of instinct in us that tries to protect ourselves?”

Georgia Hardstark is co-host of “My Favorite Murder,” a US podcast that deals with historical and modern cases. One episode, for example, deals with the dancing plague of 1518 and the paper bag murderer.

One of the reasons Georgia is so interested in true crime is because it helps her feel less “paranoid” and validates her fears about life, she explains.

“That’s always at the forefront of my mind: ‘What’s around the next corner? Are my doors locked?'”

For Holly, the line between fact and fiction is clearly drawn: unlike in true crime cases, she always knows the ending “before I have even written the first sentence”.

“I knew from the beginning who the murderer was going to be, this whole story,” she says. “The slightly more complicated part is not solving the mystery, but figuring out how Pip is going to solve the mystery.”

In A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, for example, Pip uses her Extended Project Qualification—an accreditation in which a student conducts independent research on a given topic—to interview suspects and pursue leads in the case.

While Holly uses true crime as a starting point for her research, she points out that the content often used as a source of entertainment is “obviously about real people’s traumas.”

Jessica Jarlvi, a Scandi-noir author and lecturer in crime and thriller writing at Cambridge University, says true-crime podcasts run the risk of over-sensationalising the events.

“That just puts me off,” she says, “but in fiction you don’t have to worry about that.”

However, from Georgia’s perspective, ignoring real crime – which often involves female victims – is “sweeping things under the rug.”

Modern crime fiction readers are becoming “more and more demanding,” adds Jessica.

Holly agrees: “I don’t have passive readers, I have really active readers who are trying to solve the puzzle.”

On TikTok, fans of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder share videos with their predictions and suspect lists as they read along with the book.

In one video, a reader shows people how to annotate the book to keep track of things by color-coding the relevant sections into “clues” and “conflicts.”

“It makes me have to try a little harder,” says Holly.

Wondering how to watch A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder? You can stream the series on BBC iPlayer.