Transmedial Storytelling; A new approach is needed
Since the beginning of human life people have told stories to each other. Nowadays, there are many different ways to convey a story through distinct media. The use of the term medium in this essay refers to the platform that is used to express a story, thus a book, a movie, a play, a computer game and so on. The phenomenon of transmedial storytelling is fairly new though. A transmedial story creates a fictional world through various media in a non-linear way.  The several media contribute to the story in their own specific course and therefore only tell part of the story. So every expression that is used really adds new information to the fictional world. This is why the consumer of a transmedial project cannot understand the entire story by just consuming one of the media that are used. For example, when the consumer only saw the movie of a transmedial story but did not play the games or read the comic books, he or she was not exposed to the entire perspective. Hence, the other expressions are needed to fully comprehend the story. 
             This essay will argue that there is a need for an alternative approach when it comes to transmedial storytelling.  The way the consumer, the reader, the player or an audience-member is used to adopt a story was based on the medium itself.  This means that the traditional way to look at a story, based on a single medium, is no longer suitable for a transmedial project. It is a different practice that stands on its own and therefore requests its own research area and methodologies.  The Matrix is an example of one of the first transmedial storytelling projects.1 The Wachowski brothers, the inventors of the Matrix, created a fictional world with the use of movies, computer games, and Web comics.  In each expression you can find clues or answers that refer to happenings in a different medium. As a result, its movies have been criticized because there were too many gaps in the story. And for similar reasons the games were criticized as they were too dependent on the film content.2 Therefore, this new phenomenon of transmedial practice implies a new theory to analyze it more deeply. 
 To address this problem, media theorist Henry Jenkins has tried to define a course while concentrating on the aesthetic aspects of this phenomenon, rather than just on the economic aspects.3 He does not neglect the economic motives behind transmedial storytelling but he sees more than that. It is about creating a complex fictional world to such a large extent that it cannot evolve in one medium; taking the art of world building to the next level. To do this, professionals of distinct media platforms have to work together to make sure each medium contributes differently to the story and generates new findings for the consumer. Various narrative possibilities emerge with complex story structures rather than following the basic path of beginning, middle and end. The more complex the story is, the more fragmented the distinct expressions of the story may seem if you analyze them according to traditional criteria. But these fragments are there so that consumers can make their own connections between the different expressions which the story offers.4 The creators of transmedial practices challenge the consumer to take a more active role by searching for answers to arising questions in other media platforms. They embrace new technologies such as the Web and the DVD to expand the story and even transform the story in a complex puzzle that the consumer can only solve by a "close reading" of all the expressions.
Contributing to a new approach, Christy Dena has investigated the nature of transmedial projects in general to come up with a theory that focuses on the practice itself rather than on the end product.5 Theories of phenomena are often explained in terms of its interpretation Dena explains: so in the way the consumer interprets the story. She prefers to look at the practice itself instead of the outcome to offer us a theory that encloses the peculiar knowledge and skills that are needed to create a transmedial story.6 These peculiar knowledge and skills are visible in the combination of different media cultures. The practice therefore needs a producer or project manager that is familiar with the characteristics of each medium and knows how to combine different platforms to create a complex narrative and who also takes medium specific characters into account.  The producer of a transmedial project needs to be transliterate and multilingual in terms of media culture discourses.7 Put differently, he or she recognises the complexity of transmediality and understands that there are many different ways to create meaning depending on the medium that is used. 
The efforts Jenkins and Dena have made to create a new method for transmediality are very useful to improve our understandings of transmedial storytelling. They have shown that transmedial storytelling is a practice that stands on its own and therefore needs its own methods when studying it. Jenkins does this by way of looking at the aesthetics of the practice and Dena by means of focusing on the practice itself. This essay does not want to totally exclude medium specific theories though. Medium specific theories are still needed because a transmedial story is, obviously, dealing with distinct media platforms. The way a story is told in a book is very different from storytelling in a film. And a comparison with computer games is even more difficult as the player has a crucial role in telling the story. Thus when investigating a transmedial practice both medium specific theories as transmedial theories are needed to understand such a practice in its broadest sense. Especially because a transmedial story can express itself in many different appearances that probably will become more and more complex when time passes. 



Notes
Dena, C. Transmedia Practice: Theorising the Practice of Expressing a Fictional World across Distinct Media and Environments (Unpublished PhD dissertation, Sidney, Australia 2009)
Jenkins, H. "Searching for the Origami Unicorn" in: Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media collide (New York University Press, New York and London 2006)
Rose, F. The Art of Immersion: How the digital generation is remarking Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and the way we tell stories (W.W. Norton & Company, New York and London 2011)
1 Rose, F. The Art of Immersion: How the digital generation is remarking Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and the way we tell stories (W.W. Norton & Company, New York and London 2011) p. 43

2 Jenkins, H. "Searching for the Origami Unicorn" in: Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media collide (New York University Press, New York and London 2006) p.96
3 Jenkins, H. p. 104
4 Jenkins, H. p.119
5 Dena, C. Transmedia Practice: Theorising the Practice of Expressing a Fictional World across Distinct Media and Environments (Unpublished PhD dissertation, Sidney, Australia 2009) pp. 1-95
6 Dena, C.  p. 323
7 Dena, C.  p. 325