5 Key Points to Develop a Multi platform Story

Stories are usually encapsulated into one medium: be it a book, a movie, an episode, or a friends anecdote. But the tools available today give us an opportunity we have never had as storytellers: multiple channels to reach our audience in several fronts, each with its own characteristics, to immerse them into our stories.

It's not just about the cinema, the TV or the twitter feed any longer. Nor is it about one being a marketing effort to help sell the other one. It's about the story existing, breathing and being alive in all mediums.

As a storyteller, I have identified 5 key points that have helped me and might help you design a multi platform story.

1. There should be one overall story world, that will hold together all the "medium specific" stories. This will be the story world and all the rules in it. Inside this world all your specific stories will take place: the movie about the most important element of this world, the mobile application with some kind of interaction with the story or a specific character, the web series from the point of view of a secondary character, the TV mini series on something else, the video game.
2. The story should have multiple main characters. Sure, you will have the one main character that will be your biggest driving force, and that will probably have most of the attention. But there are many interesting characters that have many more things to say and to add to the big picture, from their own point of view, not tinted by the perspective and themes surrounding the main character. Those aspects of the story need be told using a different platform than the main story is been unveiled in.
3. It should be an EVENT. The distribution needs to happen all at the same time, as a big event. Different to what we are use to seeing in linear story distribution: the series comes along, it's a success, they make the movie, then the toys, then the video game. Today this needs to happen all at once, in a systematic way: as the movie opens in the theater, we launch a web series, a mobile application, social media content, creating a community that engages with the story. It's a bug event for a specific time period, with all the content being deployed with a sense of urgency.
4. It most lend itself to social interaction. This doesn't mean the audience will interact with the story or the characters. It means the audience will have something to say about it. They will interact with each other and create a public opinion, that translates into word-of-mouth free marketing.
5. Each different platform most show a different emotional level and/or point of view. So, don't tell me the same in the mobile phone, in the website, and in the movie. They are all different mediums, they have a different effect in our emotions and have their own language. Use that to your story's advantage!

There are probably thousands of other elements that I am yet to identify. What have you identified? What is important to you when designing story for multiple platforms?