Anna Fitzpatrick’s debut novel Good Girl is an honest and witty portrait of ambivalence in young adulthood | CBC Books

At first glance, Anna Fitzpatrick’s debut novel Good Girl might seem like a major shift from her work in children’s literature. However, while the novel’s content is categorically adult, the Toronto-based author of Margot and the Moon Landing draws inspiration from YA literature for the witty, casual tone of her new novel she dubs an “overgrown young-adult book.” 

Fitzpatrick’s novel, billed as “Secretary meets Fleabag,” follows Lucy, an aspiring Toronto writer in her 20s, as she attempts to navigate friendships, work, dating and sex — all of which are profoundly affected by her desire for approval.

Fitzpatrick told CBC Books about what went into writing her debut novel Good Girl. 

Scene-driven

“I started writing what ended up becoming a first draft in the fall of 2016. I was in Budapest. I sublet an apartment for a month with no real goal except to be there. I was freelancing, so I was able to do that. And I had a friend in New York contact me. She was doing a series of chapbooks and she said that if I ever had anything around 10,000 words, to consider publishing [it].

“I had never written fiction before. There was no actual goal to write a book or anything. Even 10,000 words seemed huge for me, but I started writing one of the scenes which ended up in the final version of the book. It was one of the early sex scenes — I wanted to write something funny that I hadn’t seen or read much in fiction before. I wanted to write a sex scene that had room for jokes in it.

I wanted to write a sex scene that had room for jokes in it.

“I took a lot of inspiration from conversations with my friends: the way we talk about sex or share stories. A lot of my writing is a holdover from the LiveJournal era where it was just people reading each other’s diaries all the time.”

Big city, big dreams

“People think that Lucy is based on me and her life is mine. Her biography is similar to mine: we are the same age, we live in Toronto, we’ve had similar career paths. But I think people think that it’s a true story with the names changed.

“Having written all these characters, one thing I learned in writing fiction is that all the characters end up being based on you a little bit. A lot of the secondary characters, some of them have traits or beliefs that are mine — and when they argue, I see that sometimes as me arguing with myself.

One thing I learned in writing fiction is that all the characters end up being based on you a little bit.

“I think a lot of the feelings are rooted in reality — a lot of the anxieties about the world and about herself and the cultural moments that she has in 2015 in Toronto. That was an era that I know well; I lived through that. A lot of the language she uses — the social-justice language of the time — is very much rooted in reality.

“The thing I like about fiction is you can find kernels of humanity that can be — I don’t want to say universal, because I don’t know if anything is truly universal — but recognizing parts of yourself and stories that are completely different than your own. So I do think there was a lot of ‘write what you know’ in this book. 

“But I do hope some of the themes touched on are bigger than myself and my own experiences. Just like when I read books I like that take place in completely different settings, or people with completely different lives than my own — you find this kernel of truth to relate to.”

Compassion for the characters

“There are scenes where I have my own opinion of what’s right and what’s not, but the characters, based on where they are in their lives, might feel differently. 

“There are things that happen to Lucy and to other characters in the book — several sexual encounters — that make Lucy or other characters uncomfortable. But they don’t see it necessarily as a violation or as trauma. When writing, it felt like I might have reacted differently, or if a friend told me this, I would get upset about it. But the characters process it in the book [with] different emotional reactions to things, and [I had to] understand that they are not me.

Even when I don’t agree with things that my characters do, I try to understand the lifestyle or the background that would have taken them to that point.

“I know I said that they are [a part of] me, but they also are separate from me and they would have responses that aren’t mine.

“Even when I don’t agree with things that my characters do — any of them, even the unambiguously bad ones in the book — I try to understand the lifestyle or the background that would have taken them to that point.”

Transition to fiction

“Learning that I could just make things up was both terrifying and liberating. Writing nonfiction, you have the excuse of reporting on facts. So if you put anything weird in there, there’s a framework of, ‘I’m just writing what happened.’ 

“Whereas with fiction, everything I include ends up becoming a choice. I mean, it’s a choice still in nonfiction, but it was just having to defend it in the story or trying to explain why certain things happen the way they did.

Learning that I could just make things up was both terrifying and liberating.

“When I was writing the first draft, I was just spitting words on the page. But as I went along, I learned to create a calendar that I was consulting to make sure things were happening at the right time.

“I also was making little note pages for different characters so that I could make sure that they were consistent, and learning to create my own fact sheets to compare my work against, because I didn’t have real life to compare it to.”

Edits and ethics

“I had this finished manuscript back around 2018 that just felt like a mess. I didn’t exactly know how to fix it — I was putting it aside to come back to later. One thing I wanted to come through was that Lucy has this relationship with Malcolm, who is also a writer and an editor.

“I didn’t want to write a story where Lucy is a genius and this guy is keeping her down. I wanted it to be like, he is a good writer and he does know things that she doesn’t and he is smarter than her in certain ways. But that isn’t necessarily the kind of writer she wants to be. There was a lot of figuring that out in the script. 

“Having editors really pushed me. The flashbacks weren’t there in the early scenes. The slumber party — that came out of the editing process. There was back-and-forth on how big certain elements should play in the story. If it was up to me, it would have just been a series of sex scenes and conversations. And I think the book is a lot stronger for them pushing me to put more in.

“I wanted more of an ethical dilemma where he gives her some advice and it’s not necessarily wrong, but it makes her confront this decision of what kind of writer or person she wants to be.”

Anna Fitzpatrick’s comments have been edited for length and clarity.