Perec's story-making machine just provides hints and guidelines for the writing of the novel. The author still has to produce a compelling storyline that makes sense and joins lines between constraints.
Life a User's Manual contains countless stories. The main one, as summarized by Wikipedia, is the one of Bartlebooth:
"Between World War I and II, a tremendously wealthy Englishman, Bartlebooth, devises a plan that will both occupy the remainder of his life and spend his entire fortune.
First, he spends 10 years learning to paint watercolours under the tutelage of Valène, an artist who is a resident of 11 rue Simon-Crubellier, where Bartlebooth also purchases an apartment. Then, he embarks on a 20-year trip around the world with his loyal servant Smautf (also a resident of 11 rue Simon-Crubellier), painting a watercolour of a different port roughly every two weeks for a total of 500 watercolours.
Bartlebooth then sends each painting back to France, where the paper is glued to a support board, and a carefully selected craftsman named Gaspard Winckler (also a resident of 11 rue Simon-Crubellier) cuts it into a jigsaw puzzle. Upon his return, Bartlebooth spends his time solving each puzzle, re-creating the scene.
Each finished puzzle is treated to re-bind the paper with a special solution invented by Georges Morellet, another resident of 11 rue Simon-Crubellier. After the solution is applied, the wooden support is removed, and the painting is sent to the port where it was painted.
Exactly 20 years to the day after it was painted, the painting is placed in a detergent solution until the colors dissolve, and the paper, blank except for the faint marks where it was cut and re-joined, is returned to Bartlebooth.
Unfortunately for Bartlebooth, Winckler's puzzles become increasingly difficult and Bartlebooth becomes blind. An art fanatic also intervenes in an attempt to stop Bartlebooth from destroying his art.
Bartlebooth is forced to change his plans and have the watercolours burned in a furnace locally instead of couriered back to the sea, for fear of those involved in the task betraying him.
By 1975, Bartlebooth is 16 months behind in his plans, and he dies while he is about to finish his 439th puzzle. The last hole in the puzzle is in the shape of the letter X while the piece that he is holding is in the shape of the letter W."
2022, Diego Chillo & Laura Travaglini