Lewis dot structure of nitrate ion

[Psychae]

I'm wondering if anyone can help me with the reasoning for what follows, I'm thinking I must just be missing something quite obvious but I can't seem to see what that is at the moment!

I understand how to get the structure by starting from a 'skeleton structure' and just filling in electrons and then creating the double bond so that each atom has a complete octet (and to get FC as close to 0 and ignoring resonance structures etc):

But I start to have difficulty when I try and do it showing all the valence electrons, I know the right structure:

but I'm just wondering how how get that if you start drawing it yourself? I started by drawing all of the atoms with each of their electrons shown singly and then pairing them, and then adding in the 'extra' electron, so it's something like this:

I'm just not sure how you work it out, and the coordinate bond seems to be making it even more difficult for me!

Sorry for the length of this, there were a couple of other things I was going to ask about it but I'm thinking they might be obvious if I get the answer to this so left them out. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[jbsteele]

The best way to approach this type of question is to start by looking at the Lewis structure of the molecule. This structure will give you an understanding of the bonding and the arrangement of the atoms. Once you have the Lewis structure, you can then start to draw out the valence electrons for each atom. From there, you can then determine how the electrons should be paired up to form double and single bonds. Finally, you can add any coordinate bonds that are needed to satisfy the octet rule. Remember, each atom should have a complete octet of electrons in order for the molecule to be stable.