Determining Most Stable Structure

[806127942]

How would you determine the most stable structure when drawing the lewis structures? Knowing that formal charge at 0 is most stable, how would you then calculate/draw the possibilities to determine the proper alignment?

[Evan MacIntosh 2L]

When I'm determining the most stable resonance structure, I've already drawn out the possible Lewis structures. It's ideal to minimize formal charges, but you won't always be able to have a formal charge of 0 on every atom. Thus, trying to determine a possible Lewis structure by thinking about formal charge first is kind of working backward. I would try to draw a Lewis structure that is valid without thinking about formal charge, then I'd look at the formal charges on each atom and see how I could rearrange the electrons to minimize those.