Jean Pierre Magro is a screenwriter, producer, and lecturer whose work investigates
how stories survive their passage through industrial systems. He writes and produces
feature film and serial television, and has co-developed comics for IO Interactive´s Hitman
franchise. His writing credits include Blood on the Crown (with Harvey Keitel and Malcolm
McDowell), Bulgarian Rhapsody (Bulgaria´s official entry, 87th Academy Awards®),
Hounds of War (starring Frank Grillo and Robert Patrick). As producer, his credits include
Not Without Hope (starring Zachary Levi, directed by Joe Carnahan). He began his career
producing long-form history documentaries for European and American broadcasters
including RAI, the History Channel, ARTE, and ZDF. He holds a PhD from the University of
Exeter and lectures on screenwriting, comics, and games at universities across Europe.
Transmedia Storytelling examines how successful stories move between platforms,
from traditional media to digital formats, and diagnoses how platform capitalism has
transformed transmedia storytelling from a democratic expansion of storyworlds into a
machinery of extraction.
Drawing on the author´s dual expertise as both producer and academic, this book analyses
how storytellers create worlds that work successfully across multiple formats through
an abundance of case studies. These case studies span from Marvel and Stranger Things
to diverse global storytelling ecologies, including Japanese manga serialisation, Korean
platform co-productions, and Nollywood video-film networks. Readers will discover
practical tools for developing cross-platform stories, methods for creating effective story
bibles and world-building, techniques for adapting characters across different media, and
approaches to inclusive storytelling that acknowledge coherence as labour. The book
also confronts emerging challenges, including algorithmic personalisation that fragments
audiences into parallel monocultures, IP financialisation that transforms franchises
into liquid assets, and generative AI that automates the appearance of coherence while
degrading narrative causality.
This book provides essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students
undertaking digital storytelling, narrative theory, and film and media production, as well
as media studies classes. It also functions as a hands-on toolkit for industry professionals
already working within film, gaming, and content creation.
0. Introduction Part I: Foundation 1. Transmedia Storytelling in a Fragmented Age 2. The Transmedia Architect's Toolkit Part II: The Creator's Toolkit & Its Constraints 3. Strategic World-Building and the Story Bible 4. Narrative Capital: IP, Economics, and the Storyworld 5. Anatomy of a Collapse: Lessons from the Storyworld Graveyard Part III: Applications and Dynamics 6. The Cognitive Hooks of Fragmented Narratives 7. Strategic Platform Design for Transmedia Narratives 8. Crafting Resilient Characters Across Media 9. Fandom and Community: The Audience as Co-Creator in the Platform Era Part IV: The Evolving Landscape 10. AI as Author: Narrative in the Age of Machine Co-Creation 11. The Ethics of Transmedia Storytelling: Inclusion, Access, and Representation 12. The Future of Transmedia Stories
Transmedia Storytelling examines how successful stories move between platforms – from traditional media to digital formats – and diagnoses how platform capitalism has transformed transmedia storytelling from a democratic expansion of story worlds into a machinery of extraction.
