pacing a plot involving social media?

Am posting this from a friend - she is writing a mystery based around two missing 18 y/o girls named Morgan and Tanisa. The case is complicated be the media coverage; because Morgan is white and pretty and Tanisa is black and poor, the news and social media are totally obsessing over Morgan while Tasnisa gets hardly any attention at all. But the twist is that Tanisa turns out to be the pivotal figure to solving the case.

My friend's question is how much attention should she devote the racial issue without affecting the general pacing of the plot?

 

I'd be more concern with the effect on the tone of the book. Does she want this to be a major message/point of emphasis or is it just a plot point based on real world phenomena?

 

will ask her.

 

forwarded from my friend:

Thanks for sharing. My plot starts off with two missing girls, one white and one black. The lead detective she has to deal with the unequal treatment accorded to both cases; the department is focusing most of their resources on the white girl but in the end it's the black girl who's the pivotal figure.

The issue I'm struggling with is that my MC keeps confronting her superior over the inequality but I don't want her to sound like she's lecturing cuz that would be unappealing. -

 

Personally, I would initially lean away from the racial aspects and lean more towards the fiscal aspects. The death of a rich-girl with an influential daddy gets far more precedence and resources than the death of a poor-girl. Then you can add in internal police politics and the media firestorm of "is this racial, fiscal, or something else."

As far as "pacing" goes... When a story hits social media, there's a blizzard of stories for a day, then talking heads blathering endlessly for a week and all of the platform "influencers" tossing in their meaningless opinions. Then it fades away when the next high-profile story of the week appears. So, as the clues are leaked to the media, the firestorm flares and dies, then flares and dies again, keeping the story in the public eye.

My personal take on the story would be the police chief is under pressure from the powers that be to solve the rich girl murder. The police chief can't admit that he's under pressure from big daddy, the town council and the local fat cats, as he's been living in their pocket for years - that's why he's always re-elected. Not knowing any of that, the detective takes it as a racial thing, as he's had discrimination troubles in his own past. The media is focused on the rich-girl murder - again, daddy and friends pressuring the story in that direction. As the unfolding of the crime progresses, and the media starts touting the lack of interest and the racial aspects of the poor-girl murder, the detective finds that he has to keep the poor-girl murder quiet to avoid spooking his suspect. So even if there is a racial aspect, and we don't know if there is or not, the detective has to keep denying there is anything racial involved, just to keep the media away from his only solid clues to solving the murders. This provides all sorts of additional conflict.

Is it a racial thing or not?

Who's covering up what?

Detective: "I spend so much time talking to the effing media and answering big daddy's phone calls I barely have the time to work the case!!!"

Protests? Do they get violent? Are they fiscally, racially or politically based?

Cui Bono! What's really going on? Is someone manipulating things behind the scenes?


All of this in addition to what the murder is/was actually all about.

 

I told her about this forum. IDK if she's with joined yet.