Did you hear about that influencer who found a dead body and filmed it?
Back in 2017, a YouTuber named Logan Paul uploaded a video of a man who had died by suicide. He’d found the man while exploring with friends in Aokigahara, Japan, an area known locally as “suicide forest” due to its notoriety as a place to complete suicide. The video was viewed 6.3 million times inside 24 hours. Paul was derided and denounced, but it didn’t hurt him. He has since made a career out of controversy, forever getting cancelled and returning unscathed, before finally leaning all the way into his controversial image and becoming a heel in the world of professional wrestling.
While Logan Paul’s Aokigahara trip is maybe the most notable and controversial example, people have been literally and figuratively pointing cameras at bodies for entertainment for some time now. We pass endless true crime podcast and Netflix documentary recommendations between each other like good books. Tiktokkers investigated the site of Nicola Bulley’s disappearance until the police had to issue a statement to discourage the internet sleuths from dropping by. Social media was awash with theories about what had really happened to Gene Hackman before the tragic truth was revealed. If the OJ Simpson trial had taken place today, the Reddit and Tattle Life servers would be straining under the pressure of the discourse.
I know all of this, not through active research, but rather osmosis. Celebrity culture and true crime have been bedfellows for a long time, as covered to extremely good effect even as far back as 1975’s musical Chicago, based on the real-life murderesses of the jazz age. It’s an easy topic in which to find inspiration – truth is stranger than fiction, etc etc, and don’t we all just love a good whodunnit?
The very first draft of my debut novel, I Found A Body, in which an influencer films a dead body and broadcasts it to the world, was very different to the version you’ll find on shelves today. Our antagonist, influencer Kylie May, originally made the very deliberate decision to point her phone at the body while live streaming. When I shared that opening chapter with my writing group, the feedback was unanimous: "Kylie is a great character, but that would never happen.”
I could have easily pushed back on the group’s feedback. I could have defended the original opening, presented the podcasts and the documentaries and the controversies as proof that it absolutely could happen. I could have even gone so far as to invoke the great Margaret Atwood and remind the group that everything that happens in A Handmaid’s Tale was inspired by real events in the darkest chapters of human history. Not that I’m comparing my writing to Atwood’s in the slightest – I’m inspired by her work but by no means a peer.
What I chose to do instead was ignore my ego, and rewrite the opening scene into the version you’ll find in the book today. Kylie May still broadcasts a dead body from her phone and goes viral, but her thought process is more ambiguous. It’s feasible to the reader that Kylie isn’t in total control of her faculties in the moment; she’s led more by shock than driven by grim curiosity. But why did I bend to the feedback so easily when I had all that evidence and research to back myself? I did it because, ultimately, the book would have suffered if I’d stuck to my guns.
Firstly, if a reader can’t suspend their disbelief, they’re not going to stick around, and I can’t force every unconvinced reader to look up Logan Paul on Wikipedia. Secondly, the changes lead to a much better novel. Kylie May was only supposed to be the reader’s vehicle into the story. A one-chapter-and-done kind of character. An interesting way to setting up the case before we get on with the classic detective story. However, the feedback prompted me to really flesh her character out until she practically had equal billing with the story’s main character, Detective Mona Hendricks. With Kylie May taking up more space in the story, I had to work hard to justify her actions, both to herself and the reader. She inspired a whole new twisty plot with dual timelines and dual POVs. Influencer Kylie and Detective Mona became each other’s foils as they both attempted to solve the mystery. The story ended up being a love letter/lament to this strange digital age we’re in.
I Found A Body is my first novel. I’m very proud of the work, and I must thank my writing group for the blunt, instructive critique that took the book from a fairly bog standard crime novel, and made the book what it is. They knew best (even if I technically knew better).
I Found A Body by Becky Brynolf ( Black & White Publishing) Out now.
An influencer, a dead body and a live stream . . . Mona Hendricks may have just met her match. Detective Sergeant Mona Hendricks has a lot on her plate. Divorce, bills, an obnoxious teenager. But she has no idea what's coming . . . 'Mum, I need to show you something' A video. Big red letters in the corner. @MaybeKylie is LIVE Alerts slide over the screen. One after another after another. The viewing numbers soar. Her daughter's favourite influencer, Kylie May, has just found a dead body and is streaming it to the world. Two dueling investigations begin as a rivalry between seasoned detective and ambitious influencer grows: one using good old-fashioned police work whilst the other's sensational tactics hog the spotlight. Nine years later and the murder remains unsolved. But comment sections never forget, forcing the notoriously self-interested Kylie to make Detective Hendricks an offer she can't refuse . . .
You can follow the author on Instagram @beckycbrynolfwrites and on X @beckycbrynolf
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