Narrativas interactivas y transmedia en las

novelas policíacas para la enseñanza de la

literatura

Interactive and transmedia narratives

in crime ction for teaching literature

ARTICLE

Universitat de Vic- Universitat Central de catalunya (UVic-UCC)

Degree in Translation and Interpretation (University of Vic, 2012). Master in Translation and

Technologies (Open University of Catalonia, 2014) and Master in Specialized Translation (Uni-

versity of Vic – Central University of Catalonia, 2016). She received a doctorate in Translation,

Gender, and Cultural Studies in 2023 at the UVic-UCC. Currently, she is a member of the re-

search group GLOSSA: Research group in Applied Linguistics, Didactics and Literature (UVic-

UCC). Beyond the academic eld, she is a publisher in Llibres del Delicte and Spècula (publish-

ing houses specializing in Catalan crime ction, fantasy, horror, and sci-). In addition, she is also

the author of narrative ction.

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5141-3460

irene.solanich@uvic.cat

RECEIVED: 2023-10-27 / ACCEPTED: 2024-02-15

Irene Solanich Sanglas

OBRA DIGITAL, Núm. 13, Septiembre 2017 - Enero 2018, pp.97-118, e-ISSN 2014-5039

OBRA DIGITAL, 25, June 2024, pp. 41-53, e-ISSN 2014-5039

DOI: https://doi.org/10.25029/od.2024.406.25

Abstract

The plots of soft-boiled novels usually oer a

game of riddles and puzzles that challenge

the reader. That is why structures have been

easier to adapt to new dimensions. Through

interactive literature and transmedia narrative,

the aim is to explore how this genre has been

transferred to other works in dierent formats.

The study will address some concrete exam-

ples to nally show the design of an interac-

tive and transmedia product with the purpose

of teaching literature to high school students.

The research does not aim to show a learning

process but the design and development of a

game to learn.

KEYWORDS

Interactive literature, transmedia narrative,

soft-boiled, Sherlock Holmes, gamication,

teaching literature.

4242

Interactive and transmedia narratives in crime ction for teaching literature

IF works crafted by talented authors go

beyond games and should be treated

as pieces of literary ction. As such, IF is

part of the electronic literature move-

ment along with hypertext ction, chat-

terbots, email, text messaging-based

novels, computer-generated poems,

and collaborative writing projects. All

of these forms are reaching out to

the larger community for wider accep-

tance and recognition (p. 1124).

Within the concept of interactive ction or liter-

ature, another term that has taken advantage

of new media to expand new literary experienc-

es. It is transmedia narrative, which involves the

expansion of a story across multiple platforms

and media, creating a rich and immersive ex-

perience, although not necessarily interactive.

One of the most accepted denitions of the

concept has been that of Henry Jenkins:

Transmedia storytelling represents a

process where integral elements of

a ction get dispersed systematically

across multiple delivery channels for

the purpose of creating a unied and

coordinated entertainment experi-

ence. Ideally, each medium makes its

own unique contribution to the unfold-

ing of the story. So, for example, in The

1. INTRODUCTION

Interactive literature and transmedia narra-

tives are two emerging forms of storytelling

that have gained signicant attention in recent

years. These innovative media have revolu-

tionized how stories are told and consumed,

blurring the lines between traditional literature.

Interactive literature refers to narratives that

actively engage the readers, allowing them to

participate in the story and shape its outcome.

This way of consumption of stories has been

transferred to dierent spheres. Thanks to

the appearance of ICT, it has been exploited in

many other ways involving multiplatform for-

mats. As Pisan (2007) describes:

People are natural storytellers; com-

puters much less so. Interactive Fiction

(IF) is a unique collaboration among the

author who composes the story, the

computer that simulates the ctional

world, and the interactor who explores

and modies the world through text-

based commands. Although the pos-

sible endings are preordained by the

author, the interactor is free to choose

her own path. The pleasure of IF is in

the balance of reading the story, inter-

acting with the world, and solving the

puzzles.

Resumen

Las tramas de las novelas policíacas acostum-

bran a ofrecer un juego de enigmas y rompe-

cabezas que retan al lector. Esto ha facilitado

que estas estructuras se hayan trasladado a

nuevas dimensiones argumentales. A través de

la literatura interactiva y la narrativa transmedia

se pretende explorar cómo este género se ha

ido adaptando a otras obras en distintos for-

matos. El estudio abordará algunos ejemplos

concretos para nalmente mostrar el diseño

de un producto interactivo y transmedia con

la nalidad de enseñar literatura a alumnos

de secundaria. La investigación no pretende

mostrar un proceso de aprendizaje, sino el

diseño y elaboración de un juego didáctico.

PALABRAS CLAVE

Literatura interactiva, narrativa transmedia,

novela policíaca, Sherlock Holmes, gami-

cación, didáctica de la literatura.

4343

Irene Solanich Sanglas

Matrix franchise, key bits of information

are conveyed through three live action

lms, a series of animated shorts, two

collections of comic book stories, and

several video games. There is no one

single source or ur-text where one

can turn to gain all of the information

needed to comprehend the Matrix uni-

verse (Jenkins, 2007).

Both interactive and transmedia narratives of-

fer unique opportunities for both authors and

readers, challenging traditional notions of sto-

rytelling and pushing the limits of creativity. Al-

though, they share some features, such as the

fact that both are storytelling methods that can

use multiple platforms or that they might take

advantage of ICT, there are also some dier-

ences. On one hand, transmedia storytelling is

a way of telling stories using multiple platforms:

videos, books, movies, video games, podcasts,

etc. The story can be explained in a non-linear

way, and it is impossible to understand the

whole universe unless the consumer goes into

the dierent products. An example of this could

be Harry Potter, which through books, lms, fan-

cs, and video games, the universe is expand-

ing, creating new narrative lines. On the other

hand, interactive ction is a type of story that

engages the reader in making choices that can

aect the outcome of the action. The plot or

storyline is normally text-based or in graphical

formats. Examples would be Zork, an interac-

tive ction game in which players explore some

dungeons, or Choose Your Own Adventure, a se-

ries of books where the reader assumes the

role of the protagonist and by making choices

determines the story’s outcome. So, while the

focus of the transmedia narrative is the multi-

platform factor, interactive ction looks to give

the reader or player control over a story (McEr-

lean, 2018, p. 164-167).

The rise of digital technology and the internet

has played a crucial role in developing and

spreading interactive literature. With the ad-

vent of e-books, mobile devices, and online

platforms, authors can now create interactive

stories that readers can access and experience

in new and exciting ways. These narratives of-

ten incorporate elements such as hyperlinks,

graphic elements, multimedia content, and

branching stories, allowing readers to active-

ly engage with the text and make decisions

that shape the direction of the plot. This level

of interactivity not only enhances the reader’s

immersion but also provides a sense of action

and ownership over the story.

Transmedia literature, on the other hand, takes

storytelling to a whole new level by expanding

the narrative across multiple platforms and

media. This approach allows authors to create

a more expansive and interconnected story

world where dierent elements of storytelling

are explored through various media. By using

dierent platforms, transmedia literature oers

readers a more immersive experience as they

can explore dierent aspects of the story and

delve into dierent narratives. This cross-plat-

form approach also allows for greater audience

engagement and participation, as readers can

actively contribute to the story through fan c-

tion, online discussions, and interactive expe-

riences.

This article aims to demonstrate how the clas-

sic structures of crime novels have been used

to create interactive and transmedia literature

and how this genre can be leveraged to intro-

duce concepts, genres, and literary works to

readers in educational contexts. To do so, dif-

ferent examples of interactive and transmedia

literature will be briey analysed, discussing

the unique storytelling techniques employed

and the ways in which these media have chal-

lenged traditional notions of narrative structure

4444

Interactive and transmedia narratives in crime ction for teaching literature

and reader-author relationships. In addition,

the implications of interactive and transmedia

literature for authors and readers will be ex-

plored, discussing the opportunities and chal-

lenges presented by these innovative forms

of storytelling. By examining the evolution and

impact of interactive literature and transmedia

narratives, this paper also wants to show “the

benets of transmedia narrative in an educa-

tional environment from a constructive and

participatory model, meaningful learning, zone

of proximal development, active methodolo-

gy, learning by discovery, cooperative, dynam-

ic and communicative learning, dialogue, and

multiple intelligences” (Peña-Acuña, 2020, p. 3).

Lastly, a new project design using transmedia

and interactive narratives will be presented.

This work aims to introduce crime ction, as

well as literature concepts, to secondary school

learners through a game designed following

the structures of the soft-boiled work, and the

objective is to nd the culprit of murder among

dierent famous literary characters. All in all,

it is meant to be a tool for teaching literature

through gamication.

2. METHODOLOGY

The question that arises is why crime ction

structures are ideal for using interactive and

transmedia structures and how to take advan-

tage of them to teach literature. To answer this,

it is important to dene the term crime ction,

which can be very broad and sometimes am-

biguous. That is why we chose to focus on soft-

boiled literature, which could be considered

a subgenre of crime ction. Soft-boiled nov-

els have often been viewed as a puzzle to be

solved that aims to answer the question “who

did it”

through an investigation that can be car-

ried out by a private detective or an “accident”

detective. So, according to Vázquez de Praga

(1986), the plot usually presents:

A man with a determined and constant

mission: to discover the truth, a mis-

sion he has to fulll from outside the

story. The detective comes to unravel

a mystery in the construction of which

he has not participated, to star in a

chase generally detached from his pri-

vate life, from his authentic personali-

ty, which will only appear fragmentarily

in the novel as an accessory factor to

speed up and enliven the plot, which

could continue its course without any

alteration with another detective with

dierent personal characteristics (p.

24).

The soft-boiled is considered to have originated

in 1841 with Edgar Allan Poe’s The Murders in

the Rue Morgue, as the story stars the detective

C. Auguste Dupin, one of the rst detectives to

appear as protagonists in a crime story. From

this moment, the genre became increasingly

popular with the addition of characters such as

Sherlock Holmes (by Arthur Conan Doyle), Her-

cule Poirot (Agatha Christie’s hero), Monsieur

Lecoq (Émile Gaboriau’s detective) or Judge

Di (historical character of China, but who has

starred in some novels by Robert Hans Van Gu-

lik) (Hoveyda, 1967, p. 11-16).

Based on these structures and precedents,

the intention has been to create a game of

logic and deduction, which uses the narrative

structure of a soft-boiled novel and multiple

1 That is why they are often also called ‘Whodunits’, a con-

traction of ‘who did it?’ or ‘who has done it?’.

2 A non-ocial detective but a person who accidentally or

voluntarily takes the lead of an investigation.

4545

Irene Solanich Sanglas

platforms or resources to solve it, thus trans-

media narrative and interactive literature. It has

been proven that introducing a playful chal-

lenge to the students usually improves their

motivation and, consequently, their engage-

ment (Ling, 2018, p. 142). In addition, the aim is

also to introduce students to crime ction and

soft-boiled, more specically, structures and to

explore some of the most important universal

literary works. The authors, Sílvia Plana Molas

(secondary school teacher), Aida Montoya Es-

teban (secondary school teacher), and Irene

Solanich Sanglas (lecturer and researcher) (the

three of them as members of L’escriba

) with il-

lustrations by Sara Costa based the game on

the structures of the Whodunit so that the stu-

dents must investigate using dierent provided

material the information they will receive and

nd out who the murderer is.

3. ANALYSIS OF EXISTING

WORKS AND PRECEDENTS

Before creating the game, we thought it would

be necessary to set how the soft-boiled prem-

ises have been adapted into other games and

formats. We have seen that one of the most

popular characters for interactive products

and transmedia narratives has been Sherlock

Holmes, created by Arthur Conan Doyle and

rst appearing in The Strand Magazine in 1887.

Whether through adaptations, reinterpreta-

tions, and pastiches, the gure of the London

detective has inspired products that have tran-

scended the literary dimension. Some exam-

ples could be board games (Sherlock Holmes

Consulting Detective and sequels), lms and

3 L’escriba is an association and a website with literary and

cinematographic content (reviews, articles, and recom-

mendations). The internet platform of L’escriba is used to

save and spread the contents of the game here, explained

with the title of El crim de L’escriba.

series (the most faithful ones like The Hound of

Baskerville, 1983, crossovers like Murder by De-

cree, 1979, updated versions like Sherlock, 2010-

2017, or the freer ones, such as Detective Conan,

1994 and still broadcasting), escape rooms or

treasure hunts. Thon (2019) describes it in the

following way:

Particularly in the context of transme-

dia franchises that are governed by

“multiplicity” rather than “continuity,”

modication will often be the domi-

nant relation between work-specic

characters. Indeed, there can be little

doubt that the Victorian master de-

tective Sherlock Holmes represent-

ed by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s short

stories and novels (1892–1927), the

21st-century Sherlock Holmes repre-

sented by BBC’s Sherlock (2010–2017),

and the 21st-century American immi-

grant Sherlock Holmes represented by

CBS’s Elementary (2012–present), the

21st-century African-American Sher-

lock Holmes in Boller, Leonardi, and

Stroman’s comics series Watson and

Holmes (2013–present), the canine

master detective in the Italian-Japa-

nese anime series Sherlock hound

(1984–1985), or the rodent master de-

tective in Walt Disney’s animated lm

The great mouse detective (1986) do

not – and do not seem to be intended

to – coalesce into a single transmedia

character (p. 188).

In the case of Sherlock Holmes, the entire uni-

verse is ramifying or branching out to contin-

ue expanding it and oering new plots. Often

the same characters are used, with the same

names and roles, or they are framed in dier-

ent times and spaces. However, the narrative

structures often remain. If we look at the list

mentioned in the methodology of the study, we

4646

Interactive and transmedia narratives in crime ction for teaching literature

can see how most of the works and products

listed above about the London Detective are

fullled.

Perhaps even more obvious and following the

previously mentioned structures, we should

also include here Cluedo (in some countries,

such as the USA, it is called Clue), which would

later be adapted into a lm, Murder by Death

(1976), that would continue to expand the nar-

rative of the board game. Van Ditmarsch (2002)

provides this summary of the context and his-

tory of the game’s creation:

Cluedo was invented in 1943 by Antho-

ny E. Pratt, a solicitor’s clerk, and (his

wife) Elva Pratt. Anthony Pratt is said to

have invented the game when he was

temporarily laid o because of World

War II and was instead doing most-

ly boring re brigade duty. Elva Pratt

devised the board. The Pratts’ origi-

nal version was called ‘Murder’. It had

ten weapons instead of six, and some

suspects had other names. In 1949

Cluedo was launched by Waddingtons

Games in the UK. In the USA the game

is called Clue. Apart from the original

Cluedo, there are various other ver-

sions available. There is now even a

Harry Potter `Mystery at Hogwarts

Game’, that is obviously Cluedo-in-

spired. Anthony Pratt died in 1994, in

obscurity. His death only became gen-

erally known in 1996, after a public ap-

peal by Waddingtons. His tombstone

reads ‘inventor of Cluedo’ (p. 20).

Cluedo illustrates the plan of a luxurious house

on a board with all the rooms in which the

crime has occurred. There are several suspects

locked up (mostly middle/upper class as far as

we can tell), all identied by colour. There is also

a certain number of weapons that may have

been used to commit the crime. The players, by

asking questions to each other and deducing

from the answers, have to guess who killed the

victim and how and where he or she was killed;

therefore, at no time is there explicit violence

because the crime happened before the start

of the game (out of the scene) and therefore ev-

erything becomes a game of logic. In this case,

like in many crime games, the player embodies

the detective, and the competition focuses on

who will be the rst to discover the truth and,

therefore, restore order.

Another quite paradigmatic case is that of Miss

Fisher, the protagonist of twenty-one novels by

the Australian author Kerry Greenwood (1989-

2014), with plots located in Melbourne in the

1920s. The character became popular with the

series Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries (released in

2012). From that moment on, the universe that

Greenwood created for detectives expanded

into other formats: in 2017 a digital game was

created called Miss Fisher and the Deathly Maze,

in 2019 the lm Miss Fisher & The Crypt of Tears,

and a spin-o from the 2012 series now titled

Miss Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries. According

to Väliso et al. (2020), “The pleasure of this sto-

ry world strongly lies in its nature as historical

ction, as a heroine created in the twenty-rst

century has landed in the past to show her

contemporaries a glimpse of future worlds” (p.

399). In addition, they also claim that:

The Miss Fisher storyworld negotiates

the boundaries of several dierent

media intertextually, multimodally and

transmedially. It exemplies how digi-

tal developments have changed the

distribution of crime texts and series

and also the modes of consumer en-

gagement when they allow for (trans-

national) audience interaction (Välisalo

et al., 2020, p. 399)

4747

Irene Solanich Sanglas

4. DESIGN AND RESULTS

As we have seen, the soft-boiled stories usually

follow a closed structure and rarely move out

from this narrative. “L’argument comença amb

un crim simple o múltiple que forma part de la

introducció, la consegüent investigació que forma

part del nus o cos i, nalment, la resolució del cas

que conforma el desenllaç de la trama” (“The sto-

ry begins with a simple or multiple crime that

is part of the introduction, the subsequent in-

vestigation that is part of the body, and, nally,

the resolution of the case, which is the plot’s

denouement”) (Solanich-Sanglas, 2023, p. 31).

The following list enumerates some of the main

characteristics of soft-boiled novels and will lat-

er be used to elaborate the game presented in

this study:

• The main characters are often middle/up-

per-class white people. Actually, there is not a

broad social representation in these stories,

which is why some years later (during the 20s

and 30s of the 21

century) the hard-boiled is

created, proposing new plots and new social

realities (Heath, 2003, p. 423-444).

• The detective who stars in the story usually

has aristocratic connections and an over-

bearing or eccentric character.

• The detective is not usually completely soli-

tary, but it can have small connotations of

isolation. However, he or she often works

through small circles, family ties, or friend-

ships (Charles, Morrison, and Clark, 2002, p.

18).

• The detective’s objective and the novel’s ac-

tion is to restore stability and order manipu-

lated by the criminal or criminals.

• The characters have a blind trust in the pow-

er of reason and logic to solve the mysteries

and achieve the goal.

• The investigation is always carried out using

a list or closed circle of suspects, often quite

prominent characters in the plot, to be able

to play with the reader’s mind.

• Although the characters can often come

from a city, the action is usually on the out-

skirts or in wilder or country landscapes, al-

ways framed and characterized by British as-

pects such as mansions, afternoon teas, etc.

(Menand, 2009).

• There is not much explicit violence. The crime,

often murder, always happens “o the scene”

and usually the reader learns about it when it

has already happened. In fact, it is most likely

that the reader learns about the crime at the

same time as the detective, the protagonist

of the story.

• The plot is structured like a puzzle to be

solved: enough clues are oered for the

reader to get involved in the investigation,

but they are complicated enough (sometimes

some false) to make it dicult to identify the

culprit. However, it follows the rules of fair

play between the author and the reader.

• The antagonist usually assumes a false iden-

tity to pass himself or herself o as another

character and deceive both the characters

surrounding him or her in the plot and the

reader.

• The crime weapon is usually strategically hid-

den and is not usually found until the end of

the story.

• The chronology of the plot can sometimes be

a little confusing since often all the characters

(detective, culprit, suspects, and involved) are

all together in one room or a certain loca-

tion in order to unravel the mystery that sur-

rounds the story (Panek, 2000, p. 96).

4848

Interactive and transmedia narratives in crime ction for teaching literature

• The crime, at rst, usually takes place in a

closed room or in an unlikely situation but

ends up having a logical explanation.

• The authors write and characterize charac-

ters’ speech with linguistic traits (colloquial,

slang, formal, and geographical) (Rzepka,

2005, p. 29).

• The vision of the world is one of order and co-

herence. Everything ts , and everything is in

place, except for the moment when the crim-

inal acts. When the mystery is solved, every-

thing returns to the order established by the

universe. “Evil is an abnormal disruption of an

essentially benevolent social order” (Cawelti,

1976, p. 149).

• The aim of this type of novel is usually the dis-

covery of the identity of the culprit

Bearing the list in mind, we created a plot that

would engage students. The characters are cho-

sen to oer diversity in terms of literary genre,

territory, and period diversity. In addition, most

of them have been represented and adapted

into pop culture (media culture or mass cul-

ture

), so students might be familiar with them

because some of the works might have been

adapted into cinema or series or because they

have already read the original story. Further-

more, most works come from British tradition

and literature since, as mentioned in the Meth-

odology of this paper, this is where most of the

soft-boiled action takes place. However, the

4 The list has been adapted from the thesis titled La novel·-

la criminal a les darreries dels segle XX. La Negra (1986–1998),

el creixement i consolidació d’un gènere en català (Solan-

ich-Sanglas, 2023, p. 34-35)

5 According to Oxford Reference, the term “mass culture”

refers to “Cultural products that are both mass-produced

and for mass audiences. Examples include mass-media

entertainments—lms, television programmes, popular

books, newspapers, magazines, popular music, leisure

goods, household items, clothing, and mechanically-re-

produced art” («mass culture», s.d.).

game is designed so that the students do not

have to know the literary contents in depth be-

fore playing but as a starting point to present

all the features.

The premise is that Phileas Fogg has managed

to complete the journey around the world in

eighty days and wants to celebrate with his

most famous friends in literature. King Arthur

decides to give the castle of Camelot, but he

cannot be there because he has another com-

mitment, so the host will be Queen Guinevere.

As mentioned before, to design the game’s plot,

we followed the rules and structure of soft-

boiled novels. Therefore, the features men-

tioned above translate as follows in the game:

Closed list of

suspects and

characters

within the

game

• Vito Corleone (The Godfather by

Mario Puzo, 1969).

• Cacofonix (series of comics

Asterix by René Goscinny and

Albert Uderzo, 1959).

• Queen Guinevere (Matter of Brit-

ain, anonymous, 1335).

• Dracula (Dracula by Bram Stoker,

1897).

• Tarzan (Tarzan of the Apes by Ed-

gar Rice Burroughs, 1912/1914).

• Alice (Alice’s Adventures in Wonder-

land by Lewis Carroll, 1865).

• Launcelot du Lac (Matter of Brit-

ain, anonymous, 1335).

• Phileas Fogg (Around the World in

Eighty Days by Jules Verne, 1872).

• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide (Strange

Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by

Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886).

• Sherlock Holmes (series of novels

and short stories by Arthur Conan

Doyle, 1887).

• Julius Caesar (non-ctional char-

acter, though used a lot in other

works, 44 BC).

Protagonist

detective

Sherlock Holmes seems the de-

tective and acts as one, however,

the “accidental” detectives are the

students.

4949

Irene Solanich Sanglas

The game consists of a booklet written in the

second-person singular so that the readers/

players get an engaging sensation when they

are reading or listening. The plot follows the

structure aforementioned in the methodology.

In this sense, part 1 would be the introduction,

parts 2, 3, and 4 the body, and 5 the denoue-

ment. The parts are stated below (titles are lit-

erally translated from Catalan into English):

1. The crime—the assassination of Julius Cae-

sar (in which all the previously explained

context is also narrated, and it ends when

the readers/players are aware of the mur-

der but have not seen the scene yet).

2. You have been in the dining room the whole

time... (this section provides an alibi to the

reader/player by which we know he or she

was not the killer. Also, there is information

about who left the diner and at what mo-

ment).

3. The suspects (each of the suspects is illus-

trated and accompanied by a paragraph

that shows the literary context. The work in

which it appears is discussed, and a min-

imum of information about the historical

and geographical context and the author is

given).

4. The alibis (although they are voiced and re-

corded, the booklet also contains the script

The goal

Find out who killed Caesar and

restore the stability and order that

has been manipulated by the crim-

inal or criminals.

Use of reason

and logic to

solve myster-

ies.

Through dierent clues, the stu-

dents must make a nal deduction.

Location of the

action

Although lots of characters come

from cities, the action takes place

in the castle of Camelot, a remote

location in the countryside. The

United Kingdom is the location

chosen for the action and where

most of the literary works chosen

come from.

There is no ex-

plicit violence.

The murder takes place in the li-

brary, while all the diners including

the protagonist (the students) are

in the dining room. Whoever nds

the corpse is one of the main char-

acters, so the players learn about

the crime when it has already

happened.

The plot is

structured like

a puzzle to be

solved

• There are dierent types of

clues:

• Written: the real context of each

literary work and each character.

• Auditory: as detectives, students

are supposed to interrogate the

suspects and therefore must

listen to each one’s alibis.

• Visuals: The illustrations also

contain useful information to

corroborate or disprove the

alibis.

• There is printed material and

material that is projected.

Crime weapon

The crime weapon is not missing

nor hidden but happens unno-

ticed. It won’t be known until the

end.

Chronology

The detectives (players) gather

all the characters together in the

library to hear the case resolution,

after having interviewed them to

nd out their alibi one by one.

The crime

Crime scene evidence always

points to the most obvious sus-

pects, and it may seem like the

crime or some of the alibis are im-

plausible, but in reality, it ends up

having a logical explanation.

The language

and speech of

the characters

The language used throughout

the games is Catalan. The alibis

scripts are performed by dubbing

actors who emulate the characters’

dialects, slang, tones, rhythms, and

sociolinguistic features (sometimes

even stereotypical).

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Interactive and transmedia narratives in crime ction for teaching literature

of the interviews that the reader/player

pretends to have with the suspects).

5. The deduction (it is the moment when all the

characters meet to give them the proper

explanations of who killed Julius Caesar and

why).

In addition to the booklet, the students also

have images that accompany each part of the

text:

• The dinner (showing the distribution of diners

at the Round Table and an empty chair rep-

resenting where the reader/player is sitting).

• The scene of the crime (in the centre there is

the corpse of Julius Caesar and all the charac-

ters surrounding the victim can be seen with

fear and worry on their faces).

• The interrogations (there are ten images in

which each of the characters is seen sitting in

an armchair. The player/reader is supposed

to be sitting right in front of them, asking the

questions they are answering).

• Plan of the castle (it shows the layout of all

the castle rooms that are mentioned at some

point in the story).

The game has been developed in Catalan and

has been tested in some secondary schools in

Catalonia. However, no study has yet been pi-

loted or data collected; therefore, this is not the

focus of this study.

So far, the game has been tested with two dif-

ferent dynamics: autonomous and guided. In

the autonomous system, the students have all

the material from the beginning, and they read

the texts from the booklet themselves, with the

teacher helping them. They stop at the alibis

part, where of reading them to each other or

individually, they have an electronic device in

which they have to listen to them. This same

device is what they use to look for extra infor-

mation about the characters and the works if

they consider it necessary. The characters of-

ten mention some aspects that refer to the

original literary works from which they come,

and students might not be aware of some con-

cepts brought into the alibis, so an internet

connection is useful for them to look for extra

information, as well as the teacher in class.

On the other hand, the guided form is the one

that makes all the students go at the same

pace. It is the teacher who acts as the narra-

tor and therefore reads the texts aloud. Often,

he or she can also put a question to the stu-

dents, who are normally taking notes, about the

works, authors, and vocabulary, among others.

In this way, the teacher can have information

about what previous knowledge students have

and it will facilitate subsequent guidance. The

alibis are projected for the whole classroom

and heard together.

In either way, students always have all the

aforementioned material available so that they

can elaborate the hypothesis and keep track of

the movement each character is sating in their

alibis. Students normally cooperate and explain

their assumptions and deductions to each oth-

er, and a debate in class is created. Before end-

ing the session, the deduction is read so every-

one can hear who guessed it correctly and who

did not.

When introducing a crime ction game, fol-

lowing the soft-boiled and whodunit patterns,

students have fun and engage in a coopera-

tive game that uses transmedia narratives (or

multiplatform formats) and interactive litera-

ture. In fact, beneath this game, there are two

general learning objectives. On the one hand,

to be able to explain and present the arche-

typical structure of the soft-boiled and take it

as an excuse to talk about the genre and in-

troduce it to classrooms. Also, from a more

5151

Irene Solanich Sanglas

gamied structures to be able to present lit-

erary content in more exciting and up-to-date

ways to introduce concepts or works to be

worked on in schools within educational curric-

ula. According to Mills et al. (2022):

DIL [Digital Interactive Literature] is es-

sential in school curricula that are ori-

ented to the global trajectory of digital

futures in multimedia communication

and creative expression of contempo-

rary and traditional stories. The itera-

tive re-telling of some of the most en-

during, entertaining and culturally and

personally signicant works of classic

literature for adults and for children in

concert with ever-changing new tech-

nologies would be reason enough for

the embracing of DIL in future-orient-

ed curricula. Such retellings, leveraging

the aordances of new technologies,

oer innovative, engaging and often

challenging re-interpretations of the

original and subsequent versions of

these narratives, as well as emerging

innovative digital narrative forms, all

contributing to the ongoing vibrancy of

literary experience (p. 215).

All in all, future and further research seeks to

collect data from the application of this activi-

ty in dierent schools and centres and wants

to put the focus on the learning process more

than the design of the learning tool used, as

this has been done in this study.

vindictive side, it allows popular genres to also

have a place in education. On the other hand,

the activity seeks to be able to present literary

content from dierent works and genres that

the students probably know from other prod-

ucts of mass culture or popular culture (lms

or series, especially). Now, however, within the

literary dimension, which really was the origin

of the story in question.

6. CONCLUSIONS

The narrative structures of detective novels

allow for the gamication of plots. The fact

that the premise of detective novels is already

a puzzle that aims to challenge the reader to

discover, together with the detective, who has

been the culprit, makes it easily transferable

to new formats. In this sense, it is easy to nd

dierent crime genre products adapted to new

structures and new narratives. Escape rooms

or escape books have not been mentioned

in this study, but they are also narratives that

take advantage of the structures of crime c-

tion to create a real adventure or a role-playing

game. So, given that the current digital world

allows access to new models of narratives, it is

not surprising that ICT can be used to preset

new adaptations based on previous formats,

or new stories that take advantage of spaces

or archetypes of any genre, but especially the

soft-boiled.

As it has been proved, proposing an activity or

project using the structures of this sort of sto-

ries also allows to talk about other works and

genres, not necessarily belonging to crime c-

tion. So, we can say that interactive literature

and transmedia narrative allow us to emulate

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Interactive and transmedia narratives in crime ction for teaching literature

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