User blog comment:Zathronas/Author's Advice: The Main Plot/@comment-10380701-20140228005317

I view stories as a bird skeleton. The tail is the introduction. The spine is the main plot, the bones surrounding the main plot are narrative. The wings are branching sub plots. Obviously the skull is the climax. The beak is the ending.

Another thing I like to do is write a rough sypnosis of the beginning and the climax, then work myself to that end, slightly modifying the climax as the plot slowly develops. In the end, the climax may or may not be drastically different from the sypnosis I wrote.