Read three books that you love. Read once to reacquaint yourself with the storylines, and then again to concentrate on the structures.
Write down the number and page length of the chapters in each book. Some books have many short chapters while others may have seven or eight longer ones.
Number each chapter down the page, and by each one write a quick summary. For instance, 1: corpse discovered, 2: police investigations, 3: Fred receives a death threat.
Work through each book and write down where the drama heightens or the subplot kicks in. Pinpoint when the main character, or protagonist, realizes his awful predicament, or when a new development changes the action.
Read the start and finish of each chapter. Write down why you think the author ends or begins a chapter here and not there, how it's written, and what the effect is of each chapter's beginning and ending.
Read through your notes and think of the books objectively; imagine them in terms of structure and chapter divisions as though they were in 3-D.
Write down the skeleton of your own story in a couple of sentences. Aim for a concise idea of what it's about.
Add more detail such as characters, subplots and timescale. Draft the basic storyline. You can build on this later so don't worry about getting it exactly right.
Draw a circle around each step of the story. Add in more events, twists and turns and circle those.
Stick sheets of plain paper onto the wall to make a big blank space, or lay them out on the floor. This is your canvas.
Write an event that you circled in your notebook onto a sticky note and stick it on your canvas. Do the same for the rest of the events in your planned sequence.
Draw vertical lines on your canvas from top to bottom where you feel there needs to be a break in the narrative. Gut feelings are worth listening to, and will help you decide on which side of the line a sticky note goes. These sections are your chapters.
Play with ideas and introduce more developments. The novelist Michèle Roberts does this, as she explains in "How To Write A Novel" in the online BBC World Service section "How To Write". Spend as much time on this as you need to until you're ready to work on the writing.
Write "Chapter 1" in your notebook. Referring to the sticky notes in the space for the first chapter, write a rough draft. Repeat for the remaining chapters.
Put the chapters in order, then sit back and read through the very first draft of your novel. Now that your structure and foundations are in place, you can begin the next exciting stage: writing the second draft!