Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the initial situation, conflict, complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. Great writers sometimes shake up the recipe and add some spice.
Initial Situation
Exposition: From Moscow, With Love (For More than One Woman)
There's no getting around it. Pasternak takes his sweet time setting the table for this story. In the Initial Situation, we learn all about Zhivago's loss of his mother when he was a kid, along with his dad's suicide. We also learn about Lara's affair with the lawyer Komarovsky and her eventual marriage to Pasha Antipov. Lara and Zhivago first meet while serving at the Russian front in World War One. They fall in love, but it's not until years later that they meet up in the small town of Yuriatin and rekindle their relationship. By this time, Zhivago's family has been deported, and he's taking his sweet time tracking them down.
Conflict, Complication
Rising Action: The Great Non-Conformist
On top of the fact that he's been dragged across Russia by two different armies, Zhivago's biggest conflict comes from the fact that Russia's Communist government just plain doesn't like him. He's totally unwilling to buy into Communist propaganda, which is a big no-no in Soviet Russia. Worse yet, his lover Lara is married to a man (Strelnikov) whom the Communist government is trying to kill, which makes her guilty by association. Zhivago and Lara flee with Lara's daughter to live in the woods. But eventually, it becomes clear that they're going to be found out… if the wolves don't get to them first.
Climax, Crisis, Turning Point
The Jerk's Ultimatum
Out of nowhere, Lara's old flame Komarovsky shows up and offers both Lara and Zhivago a safe place to go that's beyond the reach of the Soviets. Zhivago, though, is too stubborn to back down from the government—or to go along with Komarovsky. He hates Komarovsky for being a former lover of Lara. Lara won't leave without Zhivago, though. So Zhivago tricks her into thinking that he'll follow her if she goes with Komarovsky. Lara leaves for safety, but Zhivago never goes.
Suspense
Falling Action: Third Wife and Death
Without Lara in his life, Zhivago feels like he doesn't have much to live for. But that doesn't stop him from lasting another ten years before a heart attack finally takes him down. During these ten years, Zhivago has kids with a third woman, named Marina. He never sees his first family or Lara again. Once he's dead, Lara shows up at his funeral and cries. We learn shortly afterward that she is arrested, taken to a concentration camp, and killed. It ain't the happiest of Falling Action sections.
Denouement
Resolution: Surprise Legacy
Years after Zhivago has died, his buddies Gordon and Dudorov are fighting in World War Two. They meet a laundry girl named Tanya whose life story suggests that she is the child of Zhivago and Lara. Later on, Gordon and Dudorov sit down together and read some of the manuscripts Zhivago left behind when he died. We learn that Zhivago's books have been published and are quite successful. The final part of the novel gives us a look at 25 of Zhivago's poems.