Writing fanfics may be difficult, but coming up with general ideas for stories is much easier. If you could write an episode, what would be the plot? Don't worry about the canon however you define it (besides not creating an entirely different show) or chronology (like exploring the events before the first episode). Back in the days of season 1/2, I remember thinking a lot about cutie mark crusaders, how they would be handled. I'm not sure if it was my idea or something I've read, but there was even some speculation about cutie mark crusaders getting their own spin-off show. A few ideas I have for them are: >they never get a cutie mark and there's some moral that kinda goes against the entire idea of cutie marks and goes something like "we can't be put in a box" >they do eventually get cutie marks the regular way, but each one at a different time, it leads to jealousy and such Another bag of ideas is exploring the background characters, but I don't have anything specific in this category. I feel like Derpy, Lyra etc. could go in a different direction than they did in the Hasbroverse. A pretty cool idea I have is this: >in the pilot episode(s) (alternatively it can be done with different characters in a similarly catastrophic scenario) one of the Mane 6 is a terribly lonely pony (and unlike Twilight, she doesn't like it), the whole mission against Nightmare Moon is the first time she has company and she doesn't want it to end (she's afraid that the group will disband after the mission and she'll be left alone), so she sabotages the mission, trying to extend it, which is eventually found out and yada yada…