Creating a ListDefinition schema.xml from a List Template (SharePoint 2007)

Have a read of this great article:

http://blogit.create.pt/blogs/andrevala/archive/2008/05/17/SharePoint-2007-Deployment_3A00_-List-Template-Features.aspx

Create the structure as per the article above.

• Create a list in SharePoint and customise it.
• Save it as a List template.
• Save the list template file from the list gallery to your local machine.
• Rename the file extension from STP to CAB.
• Open up the file and extract the manifest.xml
• Open up the manifest.xml

All you're concerned with in this file are the following nodes:

• ListTemplate\UserLists\List\Views
• ListTemplate\UserLists\List\Fields

Using the original schema.xml file as a template you can copy chunks of XML from the manifest.xml into/over relevant sections.
I've also found it useful to remove all the "ContentType" nodes from the schema.xml file. Otherwise when you go to create a new item or edit an item your custom fields won't show up. You can leave the ContentTypes node just clear out it's contents.

I hope this helps you avoid manually typing out some XML and further associated headaches.
As a quick reference the custom list schema.xml file can be found here:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\CustomList\CustList\schema.xml