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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/32109
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

One can plan plot in details, or one can design characters' traits and see what story can't help but develop from that. You might find either approach or something in between serves you, but it sounds as if you've settled on something nearer the first end of the spectrum. One approach is to first write a synopsis of the whole story, in roughly the level of detail a future Wikipedia article about your book would; but even if you do, you might not find your initial "this is how much each chapter will cover" plans don't work out, either because they'd be the wrong length or because they wouldn't end on high notes.

It might be easier to let a synopsis guide you roughly as to the "parts" of a novel (which is what I did for one manuscript), and then see as you write which parts are several chapters and which stop in the middle of a chapter. You needn't display the "part" labels in the text itself; it'd only give away the twists. But you need to serve the needs of your story; for example, another manuscript based each chapter on one term at school, and therefore the storyline determined fairly neat chapter division.

Original score: 2