Basically, the plot takes a look at what happens in a story. What do your characters do; where do they go? You need to know exactly what happens at each moment to the characters in your creation.
To start off, first make a list of the different activities or events that the people (or creatures) in your story go through. Put them down on paper or word processor in a numerical order. For example, "1. Joe goes to the restaurant, 2. Joe talks with the waitress, 3. Joe's friend meets him at the dinner table," etc.
Once you have all of this down, figure out what the characters do before the first event, and what they do after the last event. By doing this, your story will begin to take on a life of its own--like it really did, or is, happening. As an example, if your first event is "Bobby goes away to reform school," you could talk about what Bobby did to make his parents send him there. Even though these events won't be in your story, they will help you write the first and last parts more thoroughly.
Next, find out (create) what the people in your story do in between these events. Using my list from above, in between #1 and #2 I could put: "Joe talks to the hostess, who then takes him to the table." The more that you can put between the original events that you listed, the easier your story will be to write.
The last part that you want to come up with is the climax, or the defining moment of the story. It may be the last event, or it might be one or two events before the last. It is the place where your main character(s) solves the big problem--or accomplishes the main task. It is important to have a problem like this in the story, so that your reader becomes just as interested in your whole story as you are. It could be something like: "The robots destroyed the enemy, and brought peace to the world of humans." Just write anything that seems appropriate to you.
The reason that you want to do all these things is that you want your story to flow when you're writing it. That is, you want to work at your writing as little as possible when you finally begin, so that you can let your imagination out more. Your idea is most important; "flesh it out," as the professional writers say.
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