A Writing Tip by Jeremy Stelzner
THE BLUEPRINT

There’s no shortage of writing metaphors about houses. Floors, walls, and the roofing often serve to represent big-picture craft elements — elements that readers can pinpoint with the naked eye like character, plot, and conflict. It’s a nice idea for new writers because those naked-eye elements simplify the writing process, but the truth is, there’s nothing simple about writing a story or building a house. 

As a homebuilder-storyteller myself, I’ve found it’s best to work from what Zadie Smith calls “a suitable design” and try not to do everything all at once. First, it’s helpful to lay down the foundation with plot and character because all houses are held up by two central questions: What is this story about and who is this story about?

So there’s this barber…

Let’s say he’s suffered a childhood trauma at the hands of so and so. He lacks a formal education due to the social restrictions of the fill-in-the-blank dystopian government. That’s all fine and good and may even serve as a lovely character study, but for the barber to exist in a story, something actually needs to happen to him that drives the narrative forward. Does he go bald and make a deal with the devil to grow back his hair? Does he fall in love with a movie star during a snowy city meet-cute? Does he bake people into pies?

Once the foundation of character and plot has been laid down, I always find it’s a good idea to set the draft aside for a bit to allow the foundation to settle. Then, it’s on to the plumbing. Setting and narration. Where is the story taking place? The barber shop? The devil’s office in hell? Outside a crunchy bohemian coffee shop downtown? And who is telling the story?

Like the foundation, you might not be able to see the plumbing, but you want your house to have it. The plumbing is where the voice of a story is born. It’s how you get the clear waters of truth from the tap, and it’s where you can excise all the shit from earlier drafts. Third person close? Go for it. Omniscient? Fine. First person? The barber? The Devil? The movie star/love interest? 

It’s quite a lot to consider. You might need to lay the pipe, flush a couple of times, and see how everything goes down. If it’s not working, it’s not working. Be prepared to fail. Be prepared to rewrite the story ten different times through the lens of ten different narrators before you get a smooth flush. If that’s what it takes, so be it. Take your time here because you don’t want this gorgeous new house flooded with raw sewage, and if you don’t get the plumbing right before moving on, it’ll end up costing you an arm and a leg of emotional currency to replace that main line. 

Next, I put on my electrician hat and jolt the home with enough power to light the place up. This electrical wiring is what carries your conflict. It’s got to run through the entire house. How is that energy going to make its way into the story from the outside? Internally, how does that energy light up your characters and drive them toward something they want? Kurt Vonnegut famously said, “Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.” And because you’re building in one of those new housing developments, there’s no gas in the neighborhood; so we have to work with electric heat here. Trust me, you want to invest in heat. Heat builds tension and, subsequently, develops character by showing the reader how the character responds to that electric current. Every room in the house — every scene — should possess some heat.

Okay — the foundation is set, the plumbing looks good, and the electric is up and running. Now it’s time to take a step back and look at the thing from the outside. Even if the house appears solid, practice restraint. Just because the house isn’t going to fall apart doesn’t mean it’s ready for visitors. It’s important to clean things up and add some fresh décor with diction. Tables, chairs, couches, and bedroom sets of language. Though again, I always aim to practice restraint because nobody wants an overdressed home. Overdecorating with ten-dollar words from the synonym selection bar on your word processor won’t impress anyone. You’ll just be selling your reader a modern farmhouse when your story is really a New England Colonial. The best décor feels so natural that guests don’t even realize it’s been professionally staged; it feels like, Oh yeah, that blue is the perfect color for the kitchen backsplash. Or, Yes! That’s exactly where that armchair belongs.

If this all seems like a lot of work, it’s because it is — and it should be. There are no shortcuts because we’re trying to build houses that will last, not another one of those cheap, pop-up McMansions whose blueprints were thrown together haphazardly by AI. After a few dozen drafts, maybe more, inspect it all: the foundation, the plumbing, the electricity, the décor. When you’re able to step back and see the house as a guest and not the builder, when the home feels like it’s where the heart is, then it’s finally time for an Open House. It’s time to let the readers in.

Jeremy Stelzner’s stories and poems have appeared in literary magazines, journals, and anthologies, including the 2024 Coolest American Stories, The McNeese Review, and Prime Number Magazine, where he was awarded runner-up for the 2024 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction. He teaches journalism and literature. You can find more of his work at www.jastelzner.com

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