The best stories are so fleshed out you don't see the skeleton. But underneath that flesh, the best stories still have bones that support them. This is the trick of writing . . . Leaving out a piece of the skeleton runs the risk of making your story fall flat. Dennis McKiernan describes the writing process with a Venn diagram that identifies the total domain as including a business environment, a craft environment, and an artistic environment.
Structure is pure craft.
Very little to the imagination. It is where all the real work is. It makes us feel like we're manipulating the reader, or cheating her in some fashion. Of course, we're tricking the reader. We're trying to make her believe something that isn't real . . .