"In every story there are visible and hidden “hinges”–places where the particular bits of the story “hang,” for structure. The visible hinges are crisis points and revelations, easy enough to spot. The hidden hinges, however, are harder to see. This is partly because the hat-trickof writing depends just as much on what happens behind the curtain as it does on the visible excitements that make up the outer story." Lilith Saintcrow, from her blog
I like that description of pivotal plot points. The skeleton, if you will, to the story. Without these key occurrences and the scenes you write to deploy them, the novel will fall flat.
Additionally, Moonrat, our friendly Editorial Ass[istant], posted a link to another great publishing site by another editorial assistant, Charles Tan. He's based in the Philippines, apparently, but the site has lots of great links to publishing & writing advice sites.
