Back in the early 1990s, when I was first asked to develop a non-linear narrative, everyone was totally into ‘branching’ narrative.

It was the most ludicrous device ever: let’s make eight films’ worth of content, just so you can experience one. I lost years of my life I will never get back discussing issues like ‘cognitive dissonance.’

For those who don’t know what this is, it’s the feeling of regret you get when you’ve made a big decision. You should have bought the other shoes, or checked the next shop, for example.

It’s what drives us to check out every fork of a narrative to see what we’ve missed, which is another reason why this particular approach to storytelling made me so bonkers.

In an effort to make some kind of production sense, the branches of the narrative would inevitably bend back into the main trunk of the story, so the choices you made meant less and less and their emotional weight diminished accordingly.

But anyway, we all felt we were inventing a brave new world of storytelling, at least for a while.

Thank god that the CD-ROM was just a blip on the distribution pathway, and multiple platforms – cross-platform storytelling – replaced the efforts we made to tell multiple stories with diverse endings on one device.

The secret to cross-platform storytelling is that we’ve been consuming it all our lives. I’d argue that the Bible is one of the first and best cross-platform ‘storyworlds’ – Jesus and his disciples practically invented user-generated content with the gospels.

Meanwhile, the first cross-platform brand I embraced was Peanuts. I first loved Snoopy and Linus in those clever single-panel ‘statement’ moments, such as Happiness is a Warm Puppy. And then I was given a stuffed Snoopy. And eventually I read the comics that started it all.

The reason Peanuts worked so well across platforms, including the likes of greeting cards and t-shirts, was not only the iconic nature of the characters, but also the incredibly clever shorthand of emotional affiliation that those statements gave you.

So don’t be afraid that there’s some magic new invention, some special secret code you need to know to tell stories across platforms.

What you already know about story still applies – great characters you want to spend time with, worlds that invite you in, stories building to moments of epiphany, recognition, revelation, catharsis and all that good stuff.

But the process of getting there changes from platform to platform. You have to develop narratives the right way for the right platform.

Looking back to when I started out as a documentary maker, I can now see that my whole career was unintentionally preparing me for working across platforms.

What I learnt about writing and shaping documentary narratives is that it is all about editing – not just in the editing room, but from the very beginning.

After a few years, I made the unusual leap from documentaries to cartoons. Here, you start with a spark – a drawing, perhaps, or a character, a fragment. In one, you reduce down; in the other, you add and grow – all in the service of story.

As a writer, you are going to be moving back and forth from building up to paring back as required for each iteration of your narrative.

At first you give it as much detail as possible – a mythology and legend, a geography and population, much of which might never appear in a cartoon series for TV, or an app or a game.

But once you’ve done this, you are ready to tell stories set in the world you’ve defined, where you can edit down to essential revelations about characters and their circumstances, and so can your audience.

With many projects that have been pitched to me lately, one thing that has struck me is the amount of box-ticking that people engage in.

“I’ve got a TV series, a website, a YouTube channel, an app, a game, augmented reality, a connected toy – and I have links between all of them so the kids will get a truly cross-platform experience,” people say.

But there’s a problem. Imagine the shape of a tambourine. The circle of the tambourine is your storyworld, and each of the bells around the circle is your storyworld on a different platform.

This is the way we all like to think our users will consume our content, all connected together with everyone happily moving around the circle. Add it all up and you get a great sound.

But you cannot assume your audience is going to track across platforms. Therefore, you need to provide a complete experience on each platform so that wherever your audience discovers your storyworld, the slice they get will satisfy.

I’ve seen projects where creators try to leave users hanging and force them to another platform for more. I’d rather users seek out more satisfaction through pleasure, not from being denied resolution.

And you need to know why a particular story from within your storyworld is best told on a particular platform. One of my favourite words is ‘appropriate’ – are you telling the appropriate story for the platform’s capabilities and audience?

Be honest about whether your story really needs to be expressed on multiple platforms. And by ‘needs,’ I don’t mean that you or your investors or commissioners need it to be. We all rely far too much on clever tech to make links between platforms. The best links are the ones the audience make in their own minds, and those are the ones we need to focus on.

Inventing connections that we only imply drives real consumer affiliation with an idea. Suddenly, the connection they have made is theirs, not ours. And that’s most powerful connection of all.

This article is an abridged version of the speech Asher gave during a session titled Writing for Interactive Media at Cartoon 360 in Barcelona in June 2015.