For a long time, I loved to read mystery novels, specifically murder mystery novels, and have found myself heading straight for the mystery section of Barnes and Nobel during every visit. For my Digital Genre Profile I chose to expand my love for this genre and to challenge myself to discover a new genre from one I have already known. The Digital Mystery Genre is composed of books or games online that incorporate interactive aspects to mystery-type scenarios. After some research, I have found many online novels and games that users or readers can interact with with while trying to figure out “whodunit” themselves, rather than waiting for the last chapter of a book or completing the last level of a video game.
My most interesting findings so far were the examples that I found to go along with this genre (which I may have found too many of as the “Notable Events” portion of my wiki will be excessively longer than the rest). One of the most interesting examples I found when researching online mystery novels was a book entitled “Journal 29”. Journal 29 is a digital book that also incorporates aspects of a game where readers can solve riddles and submit answers online to get keys and move forward in the story. Readers are able to “write, draw, search, tear paper, fold pages, and combine different methods to try to get solve riddles” (“Journal 29: Interactive Book Game”). I also found it interesting that 55% of respondents from a survey of 232 public libraries reported that mystery continue to be the most popular genre in terms of circulation and that today, mystery titles make up over 20% of library ebook collections.
My challenges started at the beginning of the project when I struggled to come up with a topic. After I finally decided on what I wanted to do, I found that it was difficult for me to find information on a gene that possibly didn’t exist. I spent time analyzing a website when I should have been finding examples of the genre I had possibly made up. I also relate to Vivian‘s post when she mentioned “Probably my biggest challenge in working on this assignment is finding information that isn’t too broad to put in the wiki.” I am also having some problems with some of the categories of the Wiki, but am hoping that the workshop will help me wrap things up and solidify what I need/ don’t need in the Wiki. However, my triumphs occurred when I started to find examples for the topic I was interested in and found many links to help me construct my Wiki on. I just hope they hold up with their information.
I can connect this assignment with that of last semester in Introduction to Modern Publishing. As we also completed Publisher Profiles on different publishing houses for the class, I was able to use them as a starting point for this assignment. Other than that, I have not done anything similar in other courses, especially with something of this much interest to me.
In “Among the Audience” by Andrea A. Lunsford and Lisa Ede, the text states that “clearly, even though many of our students are completely at ease in the digital landscape, they nevertheless need to become more knowledgeable about the nature and complexity of the audiences for whom they perform, particularly as they shift back and forth from self-sponsored online writing to academic writing.” I believe this assignment challenges students to not only discover more about a particular genre that interests them, but also challenges them to decide many factors that should go along with their topic such as audience as it mentions in the above text.
Word Count: 621
Work Cited:
“Journal 29: Interactive Book Game.” Journal 29: Interactive Book Game, Journal 29, 2018, journal29.com/.
Chadwick , Kristi. “Following the Digital Clues: Mystery Genre Spotlight.” Library Journal, Library journal.Com, 12 Apr. 2013, reviews.libraryjournal.com/2013/04/books/genre-fiction/mystery/following-the-digital-clues-mystery-genre-spotlight/.