by C. S. Lakin
Mystery novels usually rely on the murder as the Inciting Incident. As such, it often plays out in the first scene, which is also the setup scene. But not always. In the runaway best seller The Girl on the Train, while the short intro paragraph paints a sketchy picture of someone being (possibly) murdered, the actual event of the murder doesn’t come into the story for many chapters. This novel, too, has a different Inciting Incident, due to the way the plot is structured. But the quality of the writing and structure of the two novels couldn’t be more different.
As with the other novel examples, the POV character is noted at the start of each scene summary.
The Perfect Girl
By Gilly MacMillan
Key Scene #1 – Setup. Zoe, 17. Sunday. About to play piano at a church, very stressed. First time performing since she got out of jail; parents, Maria and Philip, had always expected perfection. She’s with her stepbrother, Lucas, and they perform a brilliant duet on the piano. While they’re playing shouting erupts. Zoe tells us that it’s the beginning of the end, because “six hours later, my mother is dead.”
Sam, lawyer. Monday morning. Having affair with married Tessa, Zoe’s aunt. He’d worked on Zoe’s case. Gets call from his office: Zoe is there and says her mom is dead and wants to see her. She’s with her uncle, Richard, Tessa’s husband.
Tessa, night of the concert. She’s a vet. Her husband drinks. She thinks she needs to resist seeing Sam after the concert.
Key Scene #2 - Inciting Incident [or so it appears]. Zoe. Sunday night—continuation of her first scene. Lucas stops playing. A man in the aisle rages “It’s a travesty.” Zoe recognizes him as a father of one of the dead classmates: Barlow. Her mom tries to calm Barlow as Zoe flees the stage in fear. She leaves with her mom as Lucas stays and plays. They pass the cemetery and see a plaque to the man’s dead daughter. Her mom reassures her everything will be all right, and Zoe wishes she had asked her mom if she was all right. [It seems that the opposition is being shown here, but Barlow really has no real role in the story.]
Sam, Monday morning, cont’d. Recalls meeting Zoe. He’d been sent to represent her after the accident, and she refused to have her mother in the room with her. All backstory.
Tessa, Sunday night, cont’d. She’s filming the recital and sees the man in the aisle. Recounts from her POV. Barlow, the father, weeps as Zoe and mom hurries out. We learn that Chris is Maria’s new husband, and that Zoe’s family is now living a hundred miles from the previous town, names changed, hoping to be somewhat anonymous. Tessa doesn’t know how Barlow found Zoe.
Zoe. Sunday night, cont’d. She and Mom arrive home to find the Russian babysitter with a boyfriend. Katya takes care of the “miracle” baby that Maria and Chris had: Grace. Mom goes upstairs with baby and the boy leaves. Zoe worries about Chris grilling her and Mom about Barlow and the outburst (since they have no idea about the accident).
Sam, Monday, cont’d. He wakes Tessa up to tell her her sister is dead. She dresses and heads out to Maria’s house, to see to the baby, telling Sam to tend to Zoe.
Zoe, Sunday night, cont’d. Her mom is upstairs, and Zoe is anxious to talk to her before Lucas and Chris arrive. After a quick tense face-off with her and Katya, Zoe checks her phone app to see what “people” are up to. She gets a message: “Did you think you could stay hidden forever?”
Tessa, Sunday night, cont’d. She arranges to take Lucas and Chris home. Thinks about how Maria’s marriage fell apart, then she moved to Bristol to be near Tessa, and got a job at the university. Father blamed the piano for Zoe’s being bullied and the subsequent accident. Recounts how Maria met Chris, whose first wife died of an illness. Lucas asks if Zoe’s all right. She reassures but reveals nothing.
Sam, Monday morning, cont’d. Backstory recounting what Sam learned about Zoe’s accident: she was drunk, driving, and the three others in the car died.
Zoe, Sunday night cont’d. Talks about Panop: the social app that kids use to troll and harass. Lucas sends her a message on it: “Check your email.” She does. There’s a PDF he’s sent entitled “What I know.” She reads part of it. It’s in screenplay form. It tells a bit of Lucas’s life—his mother dying, his father’s career—before Chris met Maria. [I found the long section boring and not revealing much of interest.]
Zoe, Sunday night cont’d. Her mom comes downstairs and pours a drink, then says they’ll make some food “for the boys.”
Sam, Monday morning, cont’d. Backstory. He recalls how Zoe told him she hadn’t drunk any alcohol, though her blood tests showed she did. Said Jack, the boy who provided the car, wouldn’t drive because he was drunk. Said Gull was her best friend.
25% Mark. Zoe, Sunday night cont’d. Helps her mom prepare food, thinks about visiting Gull’s grave, how she had to hide who she was in case anyone saw. Zoe asks her what they should say about Barlow, and her mom explodes: “I don’t know!” Chris drives up, and Mom tells Zoe to leave it to her and say nothing. [One could argue that the fixed goal at this moment is centered on how to keep their secret from Chris and Lucas, though that goal shortly ends. There is no goal for the protagonist in this novel—a fatal flaw.]
Tessa. She follows Chris and Lucas into the house. Chris wants to talk to Maria privately, but she says she must tend to the snacks.
Zoe. Washes face and thinks about Jack Bell, a boy at school and who held the party the night of the accident and had made a pass at her. Downstairs, Chris presses for answers about the man who made a scene, but Zoe and Maria deny knowing him.
Tessa. Maria continues to try to ply everyone with food, to avoid talking about the incident. Chris snaps at Lucas for being rude.
Zoe. Chris and Zoe set the outdoor table. He questions her again: Does she know that man in the church? She says no, trying not to look guilty. Just as they’re about to eat, someone pounds on the door. Chris tells Maria to go check on the baby as he goes to answer it.
Sam, Monday morning, cont’d. More backstory about Zoe’s weeks after the accident. He’d met with Zoe and her parents, and they discussed the online bullying, her parents insisting the bad kids lured Zoe to the party. She says she drove willingly, but didn’t know she was drunk.
Zoe, Sunday night cont’d. Zoe is alone with Lucas. He asks her if she’s read the script he sent. They are awkward together. He presses her to read the whole thing.
Key Scene #3 - First Pinch Point (30%). Tessa. Tom Barlow is at the door. He demands that Zoe pay for what she did. Chris questions him, then pushes him back. Tessa intercedes and asks Barlow if he would talk to her. He gets tearful, and she leads him away outside. She tells Chris to go back inside, notices Maria watching from upstairs. [This would work as the pinch point if, indeed, Barlow was the opposition or played a larger opposing role in the story. He doesn’t.]
Zoe. Zoe and Lucas talk. Lucas wonders if she’d ever stop playing piano, and that upsets her. She wonders if he is thinking that. Then she spills food and they laugh. Chris comes in, angry. Accuses Zoe of acting like a slut. Zoe is shocked and freaked by his words and tone.
Tessa. She sits outside with Barlow. He recognizes her from court. Shows her the flyer he got at his door for the concert. He too had moved his family here to get away from the past. He asks Tessa if Chris knows the truth. He gestures at the fancy house and says he himself has nothing. That Zoe is a murderer and should pay. “People need to know, and I’m going to make sure they do.” He walks off. Tessa follows.
Zoe. Tells her mom Chris wants to talk to her. Mom is on the bed playing with Grace, asks Zoe to lie down with them, giving Zoe a rare moment of closeness with her.
Tessa. Follows Barlow and sees he only lives a few miles away. She sees him get out, his wife ask him what’s wrong, and Barlow not telling. She decides not to pursue talking to him because clearly his wife doesn’t know what he just did.
Zoe. Chris comes upstairs. Maria leaves to talk with him. Thinks how her dad blames her mom—for pushing Zoe too hard with the music. Now they hardly talk. Her mom used
to cry every night after Zoe got out of the Unit, until she met Chris.
Tessa. Returns Richard’s call. He’s drunk, as usual, but she still loves him. He wonders why she doesn’t leave him. So does Sam. She says she’ll be back later and rings off.
Key Scene #4 - Twist #1. Zoe. With Grace. Lucas summons her, then kisses her in the hallway. He tells her he knows her secret, all about her. He says they can’t leave their parents alone, that “Dad can be mean sometimes.” They go in kitchen, where Chris attacks Maria for not being honest. She suggests they all sit and talk, and he says it’s a bit late for that. Zoe’s shocked—her mom is losing it. Chris demands Lucas get out. Zoe screams. Everything has suddenly come to an explosive head. [While this is a new development, it doesn’t really impact the overall plot. It’s more like “so what?”]
Tessa. Arrives at the house and hears a scream. She comes in, takes Zoe upstairs, aware that something’s been revealed that has caused huge conflict. She puts Zoe on her bed, then goes downstairs.
Zoe. She knows she shouldn’t have screamed. She thinks about being in the Unit, about Jack Bell giving her a big Coke at the party that tasted funny, then trying to seduce her. Gull had shown up, then vomited. The other girls made fun of them. Jack offered to drive Gull home. She remembers them getting in the car. Then remembers Lucas saying he knows. She gets her phone to read the rest of his script, not wanting to go downstairs.
Sam, Monday morning, cont’d. Backstory continues. Recalls how he discussed pleas with Zoe and her parents after the accident. Zoe insists on pleading guilty. [Note: Sam’s scenes have almost no present action, so they serve to provide backstory that could be revealed in Zoe’s POV. I don’t see the point to them at all.]
Tessa. Finds Maria, Chris, and Lucas outside by the pool. Maria seems drunk, says she told Chris everything. Maria starts to undress, to Chris’s horror. Maria jumps in the pool and Lucas fishes her out. Chris gets her a towel and takes her inside, softened. Then tells Tessa she should go home.
Zoe. Looks at her phone app. Thinks it’s Lucas who wrote “I’ve known all along.” She remembers driving the car that fateful night and the banter between the teens. She just wanted to drive slowly and take Gull home. When she missed the turn for the lighthouse—where Jack wanted to go—she accidentally hit the gas instead of the brake, and Jack swung the wheel. Tessa disrupts her reminiscing, saying Zoe’s mom fell in the pool and that Tessa is heading home. Her aunt reassures her that things will be fine and Zoe paid the price for her mistake and now deserves a life.
Sam, Monday morning cont’d. Backstory. He remembers Zoe taking the stand, Jack’s sister, Eva, stating Zoe was very drunk at the party. She lied, saying Zoe poured vodka into her own drinks. Then another girl corroborated the testimony.
Tessa. Dreads going home to drunk Richard. She finds him asleep, helps him to the bathroom to pee so he won’t have an accident, then cleans up the mess in the kitchen. She gets sad thinking about her marriage, about Barlow, then calls Sam.
Zoe. Lucas comes to get Zoe. They’re to have a family talk. They go into Chris’s study, where he pulls up a photo from the concert—Lucas is staring at Barlow as he and Zoe sit at the piano. Maria comes in and gasps.
Sam. Backstory. Tells of Zoe’s sentencing. Two years later he ran into Tessa. He now watches her drive away to see Zoe after learning of Maria’s death [finally getting back to the present action for one paragraph].
Zoe. Her mom tells Chris and Lucas the whole story. Chris says he is glad she told him but upset she lied. Maria is wholly repentant. Zoe says she’ll go clean up the dinner.
Tessa. Antsy, she heads to Sam’s, though she can’t reach him on the phone. Then realizes she left her phone at home. Arrives at Sam’s place.
Zoe. She’s cleaning up. Talks to Lucas about how he knew her secret. He remembered her from a piano competition years ago. Finishes and goes upstairs to be with Grace. Lies with her on the bed, notices the clock. It’s midnight.
Tessa. Watches a movie with Sam, then they go to bed. She cries a bit before falling asleep.
Key Scene #5 – Midpoint (exactly 50%). Zoe. Wakes. Hears screaming. Runs downstairs, the front door’s open. By the trash shed stand Chris, Katya, and her boyfriend. Zoe hurries over to see her mom on the ground inside, bloody and lifeless. Medics arrive. [It’s odd to have a murder/death be the Midpoint, but it is a dramatic event that now changes everything in Zoe’s life.]
Zoe. The police are there with the four teens, Chris, and the baby. Chris tells the police he’d been asleep and didn’t know if Maria had been drinking. Chris accuses Barlow. The police ask them all, except Katya’s boyfriend (whose father picks him up) to come down to the station. Grace worries if she will be killed next and if they’ll think she killed her mom. [I wonder why the boyfriend, who would be a main suspect, was allowed to leave, never questioned.]
Tessa. Arrives at the house to see Maria carried off in a body bag. Police tell her there’ll be an autopsy, and a murder inquiry has been launched.
Zoe. At the police station she talks to her uncle Richard. She says she wants to go with him to find Sam at his office, where they’re told he’s on his way. He arrives and Zoe sits down with him to tell him what happened.
Sam. He sits with Zoe and Richard—he sees Tessa’s husband for the first time. Richard is worried; he doesn’t know where Tessa is, and Sam certainly isn’t going to tell him. Sam asks Zoe why she’s here. She says she’s scared Barlow may come after her, that she might be blamed. Sam knows he can’t help her. He will possibly be a witness, and his relationship with Tessa is bound to come out.
Zoe. Sam calls Zoe’s dad to get her. She’s upset. Richard’s phone rings; it’s Tessa, and Richard is hysterical that she’s okay. Zoe speaks with Tessa and tells her what happened. Tessa assures her she’ll be cared for. Zoe and Richard head back to the police station.
Tessa. She’s meets up with Richard and Zoe at the station. Chris is yelling. He doesn’t want his family incarcerated there. Tessa offers for them to all go to her house. Once there, she goes upstairs and takes a shower and cries.
Zoe. Everyone’s adjusting at Tessa’s house. Chris talks to Zoe and assures her they’re still a family. Zoe tells Lucas what torment they’re in for with the investigation. He asks her to delete his script. She says no but gives in. The police arrive to question everyone separately.
Richard [first time in his POV - awkward structure to add him so late in the story]. He’s thinking about all these people in the house, changing the baby’s diaper, wanting a drink. Feeds the baby and determines to question Tessa later about where she was last night.
Sam. He’s dealing with a medical issue. Meets with friend Nick George, who works in the Criminal Investigation Dept., to get info on the crime scene. They talk about his illness in vague terms, but it sounds serious.
Tessa. She and Richard talk a bit before the police arrive. He wants to know where she was last night, but she gives a vague answer. Police start with Chris in a private room. They ask for Zoe, but she wants Sam with her. Tessa tells her she doesn’t need him. Chris scolds Zoe and tells her to cooperate. Zoe goes in.
Zoe. She’s familiar with and wary of police interviews. They ask her friendly questions, to which she answers “no comment.” They stop, and her father enters the room.
Tessa. Uneasy with Philip there. She hasn’t seen him in years. He looks old, and she’s mad he abandoned Maria. Zoe clings to him and says, “I was asleep.” Tessa doesn’t think Philip will be much help.
Sam. He’s in the hospital waiting room. Nick calls, says there was blood splatter found in the house. He goes in for his test.
[Pinch Point #2 should fall about here, but there is none.] Tessa. The police question her. She tells about the night’s events. They ask for her phone, which has her texts with Sam. Police tells her Barlow had a solid alibi.
Zoe. She sits with her dad. They argue as he defends Barlow. She pounds on him, and he doesn’t know what to do.
Rich
ard. Feeds the baby, chats with Lucas about movies. Zoe is led in and upstairs, and Richard notes Chris’s harsh expression as he watches.
Zoe. She’s in a room, crying. Gets on Richard’s computer and downloads the rest of Lucas’s script, which reveals Chris kind of battered Lucas’s mother. [I personally find the script inserts boring and unnecessary. Lucas could just tell Zoe his secrets.]
Zoe. Stops reading. The liaison officer comes in, asks what she is looking at. Zoe lies.
Tessa. The police interview her, then stop because they have to attend to something. She talks to Philip, he’s at a loss what to do with Zoe, Tessa slaps him, tells him to be a father. Chris takes the baby, and Tessa wonders what will become of Zoe.
Sam. Getting an MRI and wondering who killed Maria.
Zoe. Talks with Dad, who won’t give her an answer about taking her. Borrows his phone and goes into the bathroom to read the rest of Lucas’s script. It finishes the story of how Lucas’s dying mother killed herself.
Richard. The police ask everyone to take a DNA test. Richard watches their resistance.
Tessa. In kitchen talking with Richard about Grace and Zoe. Richard starts to press redial to call Sam after Tessa told him she’d tried to reach Zoe’s solicitor. Tessa freaks because she had called Sam’s private number. [This subplot between Tessa and Sam goes nowhere.]
Zoe. Wonders if Chris is somehow responsible for his former wife’s death. His past violence scares her. Chris wants to call a hotel and take the family there to stay. Zoe doesn’t want to go, worried to have Chris take Grace.
Richard. He talks with Tess about Chris; she suggests he must have killed Maria. Richard presses her about Sam, about where she was last night. He worries where all this will lead.
Zoe. Gives Grace a bath. Lucas comes in. Zoe tells Lucas she read the script. She asks him if Chris killed his mom; he says Chris may have made her take her life. Zoe asks if Lucas thinks Chris killed Maria.
