/lit/ - Literature

>>13073129
For each complex character
>CONCRETE goal? (no abstract shit, although the concrete goal can be motivated by abstract shit)
>flaw that stops him achieving the goal above and beyond plot obstacles?
>lesson that he has to learn before he can overcome his flaw?

For your main plot and all subplots (you should have some subplots unless you're writing something out of the ordinary, and the subplots should interact with the main plot).
>inciting incident
>developments
>crisis
>resolution

The plot should teach the lesson.

There, you've just done a rough outline of your novel.

Identifying plots: a plot is a character pursuing a goal. Where you have a character pursuing a goal, that's a plot. Subplots can either be secondary goals of the main character, or main goals of secondary characters.

Now just list the scenes from beginning to end that you need to write to tell the story. Pic is from a dumb transformers fanfic I was gonna write. As you can see, Thrash (the main character)'s concrete goal is to get his memories back; his flaw is that he can't relate to or make friends with his autobot captors because of his sense of grievance against the world, and the lesson that he has to learn is how to incorporate the psychological trauma that he suffered over the course of the war and move past it to get on with his life instead of returning to being the unhinged maniac he used to be.