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Hey Grace! Cool, glad you’ve got some ideas of how to tackle it. I’d love to be involved via the Google doc. Just let me know 🙂

There’s something else that really helps me that I totally forgot about. This may be familiar to you, but it’s the concept of using the main character’s arc to figure out main plot points. The best way I know how to describe it is an example, and the only one I know well enough is my own, so pardon me while I dip into my first book a bit. This is just a subplot of the book, but I used the same concept for my main character and to drive the main plot. The subplot is just easier to summarize.

Sidra’s initial condition is that she believes in God, but fear rules. By the end, God rules and fear takes a back seat. Facilitating this switch (believably) was what the main plot points in her storyline were all about.
~First she’s captured by enemies, and in her aloneness she must trust God to help her prevent a panic attack.
~Then her enemies force her to tend wounds (she normally faints when she sees blood), and she has to depend on God for the strength to do what they require of her.
~She’s later threatened with death and God miraculously saves her. This builds her trust, but she fails to maintain it and fear returns.
~Next time she faces death, she relies on God’s strength and prevails over fear. Still, it’s a shorter-lived victory than she would like.
~In the end, headed toward a place of death, she finds the courage not only to face her circumstances trusting God, but to speak of Him to others.

Okay, so there’s lots of death-threats there, but each was different and pushing her toward trusting in God to conquer her fear. So right there, my subplot had 4 mini-climaxes leading to the final one. Every single one was based on Sidra and what needed to happen to her to get her where I wanted her.

So the short of it is, who’s your main character? What is their initial condition/problem? Who will they end up being before/during the climax? What will it take to change them that drastically? Those could be the plot points you need.

If you already knew all this, well, there’s my perspective on it for what it’s worth. 😉