Writing How do y'all figure out story or worldbuilding problems that you're stuck on?

[DaelyxLenAuphydas]

I... don't know that I've ever had this problem, where I simply can't find a solution to a problem in my story. Maybe it's because I write characters first and so their motivations are what drives the plot forward. Maybe I just haven't been writing long enough (I've only been writing seriously for about two years, though my story does have over a quarter million words by now). Maybe it's because my story isn't all that complex plotwise and most of my worldbuilding is built from the same core themes. Probably the last one, honestly.

Okay, I wrote out a whole thing and then before I could hit post you gave me exactly what I was asking for, which was more specificity about what the problem was.

I think in this case you're going to have to sacrifice something to make your story work, which hurts, trust me, I know. But your two concepts directly clash in a way which make so that even if you find a way to reconcile them, it will diminish the impact of both. You can't have magical abilities based on a person's physical traits and then tie the types of magic too closely to their personality and identity at the same time.

If I remember correctly, in MLP they kind of did both, where pegasi and earth ponies had magic based on their race/subspecies, but unicorns' magic was heavily based on their personality/identity. Yes, all unicorns did spells, but most could only do a select few spells, and Twilight Sparkle was a major outlier in that she basically got to do all the spells, but then her talent was literally just magic. (She wasn't exactly normal in a lot of other ways, too, but eh.) You could borrow that concept, where certain races' magic is based on their biology, and others on their personality. MLP also had the ponies have 'surges' of magic as infants, but then they have to learn to fly/do magic properly once they reach their adolescence. I don't see there being much of an issue with your characters only actualizing their magic once they grow into adolescence or even later.

You can fix the issue of only aristocrats having magic by having aristocrats be only certain races, which also lets you do things with racism if you so choose, though I don't know if that would mess up other plot points you have. It also means not all your races get magic, but I don't know if that would be a problem or not.

All things considered, I feel that you're going to have to throw out/heavily rework a lot of the work you've already done if you want your story to be coherent. It's not what you want to hear, I know, but based on what you've told us I think it's your best option. The two concepts you've outlined just clash too heavily for there to be a quick and easy fix. Don't delete what you've already written, though; you may be able to reuse the concepts in new ways later.

Writing surprisingly often necessitates getting rid of your hard work because it just didn't fit for one reason or another. There are successful writers that in order to get one book to a publishable state, they have to write over ten times the amount that eventually ends up being in the finished product. (I think that's closer to the norm than the exception, actually.) Unless you get really good at spotting the potential problems early, you may have to resign yourself to writing a lot of words/stories/plotlines that will never see the light of day. It doesn't mean all that work was useless or a waste of time; rather, it was a part of the process that will eventually get you the story you want to share with the world.

When Tolkien was writing the Lord of the Rings he had a LOT of failed attempts, though that might have been somewhat due to the fact that he wrote by starting from the beginning until he wrote himself into a corner, then he'd start from the beginning again. And again. Eventually however, he did get the finished product that made him universally famous. But how many years of effort do you think he threw out before he got the version of the story that revolutionized an entire genre, the Lord of the Rings that so many know and love?

Man, before I respond to the meat of your message, I just want to say that I appreciate you taking the time to write up this long and thought out of a response. I've been having a truly awful day and just having someone take the time to critically think about my problem honestly means the world to me. Now, that out of the way...

So first, I agree that something has to be sacrificed. The ideas that I came up with in brainstorming just ended up with weird intersections that I didn't realize until way later. But the problem I'm having is that I have such a convoluted plot and world set up now that I dont really have a firm idea of how to progress with either version, since theres a very major knock-on effect. And I've already cut a lot; the thing is, this is not the first time I've had this kind of problem. Its more like the eighth. Spent months and months on versions that I've cut; pretty sure I've now cut a full novel worth of work.

And I kinda know thats how it is, in fact I consider "writing an entire story then realizing it doesn't work and cutting the whole thing" just an essential part of the writing process. Problem here is just... I dont know how to rework the story. Or what sacrifices I'm okay with making.

Well, having watched many seasons of MLP, I know the world there fairly well. *^^*
It still sounds like, to me anyway, that you should still focus on your original plans. There's no need to re-write a lot if you just stick with what you intended first. Look at it this way, you're not limited to just ONE book here. You could write the first book as you intended, and then write another book that continues the saga. That way, your new ideas can then take center stage.

If I could ask, why did it take you a whole year just to plan everything out...? That's a horrible misuse of your time. You should have talked to me sooner.

Well, I was talking on the fimfiction discord till I had a falling out there the other day, hence why I moved over here. As I said in the bit above; I have had this kind of thing a lot, and also I should say I am not someone capable of writing as fast as most people on these kinds of sites. Some days I can write a few thousand, but far more I write like a hundred words and that's all I got in me. So this kinda thing taking me over a year is not that abnormal for me. I have trouble thinking of things on my own, and believe me I have tried to get other people interested in this project. But its simply not something anyone but me cares about, none of my friends will even interact with me over it really. Plus I was working out all kinds of other issues, and also actually writing a lot of it.

Anyways. Moving back to the point; I don't think that anatomical changes being tied in with magic is necessarily the problem. I think that, in isolation, tying characters anatomy to their personality as they grow up would work fine; the problem I started having was the intersection between those anatomical changes and their subrace, which often incorporates things like horns into it. that's really where I start running into major problems.

Now both the 'pony subraces' and 'ponies developing magic as they reach adolescence' are pretty important to the story. The former because it is involved with, well, all of the character designs and the geography I've set up of the world and is honestly just a core part of the concept. And the latter, because its vital to the early plot (Which is based on the aristocracy secretly using magic to drain the commoners magic to ensure that they always end up with magic and the commoners always end up without.)

At any rate these are the options I have yet thought of:


- Some anatomy is just randomly based on magic and some is randomly not and its inconsistent and stupid and I hate it (This would be the 'stick with as it was originally intended' option, as that is how I've been writing it thus far. Its basically just been 'Ponies that develop magic get a unicorn horn, unless they already had horns/antlers then they just use that, and ponies that develop flight get wings.' The reason this is becoming a problem for me is the inconsistency)

- I have to change everything around so that all the pony races other than plains ponies are magic and then completely rewrite characters races to accomodate that

- Decouple magic from anatomy, leading to such stupidity as wingless creatures just flying for some fucking reason

- I remove all the pony races and just have to destroy all my character designs I put so much work into, hyperaustralans are just a culture or something now

- I make horns and wings specifically always be based on magic, so that now hyperaustralans just dont have antlers despite being deer, bicorns cant even be called bicorns or have horns, etc.

- Magic type is linked to race and I have to totally scrap any character whose magic and race arent a one to one fit, that being most of them

- I entirely drop the story being about ponies

- I abandon literally my favorite story I've ever worked on

- I remove pegasi from the story and make magic be exclusively unicorn magic, then make it so they dont need horns to use it

- I tie pony race to magic then HEAVILY abuse hybrids to justify current designs

- Only races with horns develop unicorn magic, then I have to either change Seren/Ceridwen's race or remove magic from Seren.

- Horns or antlers dont cast magic, only unicorn horns specifically work

Thats about where I'm at right now. Uh. I'm sure I neglected to mention a ton of details but its just really hard to even think of every factor in a project this complex tbh.

The thing is, I feel like the uniqueness of both decisions is a significant part of the story's appeal to me. Entirely sacrificing one would feel... Crummy. I think one will definitely end up having to take precedent but I dont want to... Totally lose out on it. Especially with how fond I am of my character designs which I've spent so long on me. Funky looking birdicorns and all.

 

[TheBestofSome]

Hmm. While flight is technically done via magic in the MLP universe, I don't think they think of it like that. From what I remember (you'll have to forgive me, it's been a while since I've seen anything MLP) if you're a pegasus, you're just expected to be able to fly, no questions asked. Same with walking on clouds, or interacting with clouds in general. So if you took that approach the aristocracy wouldn't necessarily care about draining magic from pegasi, because, well, they don't have magic. At least not magic as the aristocrats view it. So those with wings can still fly, though it does mean you'd have to give up the personality-based magic development with them unless you make it more granular and have smaller niche abilities that still fit under that main umbrella.

In other media magic is often a gift or talent that only certain people have. Often this is based on bloodlines and such, but not always. The choice of who gets magic and who doesn't is kind of arbitrary in those works, so it wouldn't be that out of place for the same to be viewed as true in your universe, especially if a certain subset of people/ponies is draining the magic of the general populace. So you could have unicorns with no magic (because it's been drained), where the horn is basically viewed as just an aesthetic feature of their body, like eye color or height, and other unicorns walking around doing magic with their horns no problem.

I think in your place I'd have the anatomy remain based on hereditary factors; for instance, a unicorn is never growing to grow wings under normal circumstances, and thus will never fly unless they figure out a spell which allows them to do so. Two pegasi will only have pegasus children unless there's some unicorn genes further back in the family that might make a resurgence, and a pegasus is never going to develop unicorn magic because they simply don't have the capability for it. This limits what the characters can become to some extent, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It allows for narratives about coming to terms with the circumstances of your birth and making the most of them, which is a good lesson to learn. That you'd have to restructure a lot of characters to make them work with this does suck, though.

If you go with the above it does mean that you'd have to sacrifice a significant part of your second core concept, but as mentioned, I'm not certain it's possible to fit them both into the story as is and have it remain coherent.

One idea that could get around this to some extent would be to have all ponies start off as earth ponies (or plains ponies, I suppose) at birth and then in a coming of age ceremony, some will gain horns, wings, etc. depending on their personality. That probably wouldn't work with the worldbuilding you've done so far, but all I have to go on is what you've told us in this thread, so I could be wrong. You might be able to make it work for ponies, and then give other races such as the hyperaustralans a different system.

All of this advice is just based on what you've told us, which is obviously only a barebones overview, so adapt it, discard it, or implement it as necessary. I hope my perspective on the matter is helpful to you.

 

[Zagaroth]

To a large extent, the story and the world building go hand in hand for me. I world build to answer the questions that come up in story, and that shapes the next part of the story. Here's an example of pieces of my worldbuilding work flow

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

(from many books ago)

Characters will be traveling south in the future, and need to cross that east-west mountain range. How will they do so? Hmm, there should be a pass, otherwise this cuts off the two pieces of continent entirely outside of ships, and I don't want that. Lets see, we'll put the major pass to the eat, in the next country over, so they have to do a reasonable amount of travel to get there. Hmm, there will probably be a trade city at the southern end of the pass, as I already said the plains to the south have nomadic tribes.

That's enough for now, I can use that information as needed during current events.

[...]

Alright, characters are now headed south several books later. That took longer than expected. Let's see, time to flesh out the city. Here's some ideas lifted straight from our world for cities built into cliff sides/at passes, modify a bit to account for magic. Oh, I had previously established that the mountains are good at catching clouds/rain coming from the north, so this side should be drier, and combined with going south, should be notably warmer during the day, but chill at night. Not quite a true desert, but scrublands at least.

Alright, that's the basics. Anything else of note about this city? Well, we already know that the city has been continuously occupied for over three thousand years (similar real world cities have been occupied for 5+ thousand years, so this is realistic), and one of the MCs has had some history here, so given all of the details about him, what would be something interesting to have here that would already involve him, and maybe build out something I know about the world that the readers don't know?

... oh. Oh yes. I know exactly what needs to be hidden away in that city. Now, what foreshadowing should we have when he thinks about their destination? No, no foreshadowing. Those memories would be locked away when not in the vicinity, as he is not currently an active member. Security is important for that sort of organization, however benign. Given established rules of magic, what other sorts of protection would they have in place? And how would he contact them again after so long out of contact? and..[answers all the questions needed to flesh out the organization and location sufficiently].

Some of those final details change as the story moves on, requiring me to go back a few chapters to edit, but since I have a backlog, I can do that before they publish.

(we're now almost at current events for my published chapters)

------------------------

Does that make sense? I don't build out more than I need, though often I build out a layer or two more than I show.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

A Ritalin/Provigil/Hydrocodone combo washed down with an energy shot and a dayquil chaser.
If you start vibrating, but it's only your foot tapping rapidly, that's just about right.

Or I post random questions to the boards and run with it.

 

[DaelyxLenAuphydas]

A Ritalin/Provigil/Hydrocodone combo washed down with an energy shot and a dayquil chaser.
If you start vibrating, but it's only your foot tapping rapidly, that's just about right.

Or I post random questions to the boards and run with it.

Ha, I'm on stimulants already. I can't take too much though, I just end up too restless to focus on anything. Pure energy leaves me with hyperfixations on random things, and the random things are never writing.

Hmm. While flight is technically done via magic in the MLP universe, I don't think they think of it like that. From what I remember (you'll have to forgive me, it's been a while since I've seen anything MLP) if you're a pegasus, you're just expected to be able to fly, no questions asked. Same with walking on clouds, or interacting with clouds in general. So if you took that approach the aristocracy wouldn't necessarily care about draining magic from pegasi, because, well, they don't have magic. At least not magic as the aristocrats view it. So those with wings can still fly, though it does mean you'd have to give up the personality-based magic development with them unless you make it more granular and have smaller niche abilities that still fit under that main umbrella.

In other media magic is often a gift or talent that only certain people have. Often this is based on bloodlines and such, but not always. The choice of who gets magic and who doesn't is kind of arbitrary in those works, so it wouldn't be that out of place for the same to be viewed as true in your universe, especially if a certain subset of people/ponies is draining the magic of the general populace. So you could have unicorns with no magic (because it's been drained), where the horn is basically viewed as just an aesthetic feature of their body, like eye color or height, and other unicorns walking around doing magic with their horns no problem.

I think in your place I'd have the anatomy remain based on hereditary factors; for instance, a unicorn is never growing to grow wings under normal circumstances, and thus will never fly unless they figure out a spell which allows them to do so. Two pegasi will only have pegasus children unless there's some unicorn genes further back in the family that might make a resurgence, and a pegasus is never going to develop unicorn magic because they simply don't have the capability for it. This limits what the characters can become to some extent, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It allows for narratives about coming to terms with the circumstances of your birth and making the most of them, which is a good lesson to learn. That you'd have to restructure a lot of characters to make them work with this does suck, though.

If you go with the above it does mean that you'd have to sacrifice a significant part of your second core concept, but as mentioned, I'm not certain it's possible to fit them both into the story as is and have it remain coherent.

One idea that could get around this to some extent would be to have all ponies start off as earth ponies (or plains ponies, I suppose) at birth and then in a coming of age ceremony, some will gain horns, wings, etc. depending on their personality. That probably wouldn't work with the worldbuilding you've done so far, but all I have to go on is what you've told us in this thread, so I could be wrong. You might be able to make it work for ponies, and then give other races such as the hyperaustralans a different system.

All of this advice is just based on what you've told us, which is obviously only a barebones overview, so adapt it, discard it, or implement it as necessary. I hope my perspective on the matter is helpful to you.

Having any perspective is helpful honestly. So, regarding the 'in other media magic is often a gift or talent that only certain people have' thing, that being a trope I absolutely loathe is the exact reason I started writing the story like this in the first place. Only to realize later on "Wait, the fact that magic is so heavily affected by anatomy kinda makes that a problem." Characters developing wings and horns only in adolescence is actually exactly how I currently have it written, but it became a problem once some traits became unclear if they should be racial or magic based. I really don't like genetics based magic, just in general, and thats why its a big part of the plot; everyone at the start of the story kinda assumes magic is genetic, only to realize later on that its only because the game was rigged to keep power in certain families and by nature everyone has equal potential.

My problem really comes down to "How do I deal with certain pony subraces having characteristics that I would normally associate with magic, such as horns or wings?" Because anatomy that is associated with magical abilities is a core design feature of many subraces, and just not having pony subraces feels like a huge loss.

I talked with my cousins a lot and it seems like two main options are standing out to them. The first is to have pony magic develop in all kinds of wacky ways, sometimes changing their anatomy but sometimes not, with wings specifically only occurring in magic individuals but horns and other traits being able to manifest in all kinds of ways with or without magic. After all, spellcasting doesn't have to be horn based necessarily.

Then the second is to have horns and wings always be magic based, with pony subraces just needing to never have those specifically as their defining traits. But the way that a given kind of magic would manifest anatomically as a magical organ is dependant on subspecies. So like the deep pony would always get bat wings *if* they were a pegasus. The goat ponies would always get ram/goat-like horns if they developed magic. Etc.

Those were at least the most popular options with those I live with... I'm still unsure and every thing feels like a compromise. But I think maybe avoiding reffering to magical talents as 'unicorn/pegasi/earth pony' might help, if I focus on the anatomical traits being mostly subrace based but the actual manifestation of magic being personality, even if some of the anatomical traits ended up being used for magic. Like horns existing in some ponies regardless of having magic, but if they did have magic they'd use the horn. I dont know if thats too confusing though.

I'm still trying to figure it out. But at least I feel like I've thought of some ideas, if nothing else.

Another option I thought of was spontaneous magic-based mutation showcasing itself in all kinds of weird ways without any clear boundaries between magic 'types', so that more magical individuals would just have a random grab-bag of traits from different races, while the more mundane less-magicy ones look more clearly like a specific subrace.

To a large extent, the story and the world building go hand in hand for me. I world build to answer the questions that come up in story, and that shapes the next part of the story. Here's an example of pieces of my worldbuilding work flow

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

(from many books ago)

Characters will be traveling south in the future, and need to cross that east-west mountain range. How will they do so? Hmm, there should be a pass, otherwise this cuts off the two pieces of continent entirely outside of ships, and I don't want that. Lets see, we'll put the major pass to the eat, in the next country over, so they have to do a reasonable amount of travel to get there. Hmm, there will probably be a trade city at the southern end of the pass, as I already said the plains to the south have nomadic tribes.

That's enough for now, I can use that information as needed during current events.

[...]

Alright, characters are now headed south several books later. That took longer than expected. Let's see, time to flesh out the city. Here's some ideas lifted straight from our world for cities built into cliff sides/at passes, modify a bit to account for magic. Oh, I had previously established that the mountains are good at catching clouds/rain coming from the north, so this side should be drier, and combined with going south, should be notably warmer during the day, but chill at night. Not quite a true desert, but scrublands at least.

Alright, that's the basics. Anything else of note about this city? Well, we already know that the city has been continuously occupied for over three thousand years (similar real world cities have been occupied for 5+ thousand years, so this is realistic), and one of the MCs has had some history here, so given all of the details about him, what would be something interesting to have here that would already involve him, and maybe build out something I know about the world that the readers don't know?

... oh. Oh yes. I know exactly what needs to be hidden away in that city. Now, what foreshadowing should we have when he thinks about their destination? No, no foreshadowing. Those memories would be locked away when not in the vicinity, as he is not currently an active member. Security is important for that sort of organization, however benign. Given established rules of magic, what other sorts of protection would they have in place? And how would he contact them again after so long out of contact? and..[answers all the questions needed to flesh out the organization and location sufficiently].

Some of those final details change as the story moves on, requiring me to go back a few chapters to edit, but since I have a backlog, I can do that before they publish.

(we're now almost at current events for my published chapters)

------------------------

Does that make sense? I don't build out more than I need, though often I build out a layer or two more than I show.

Thats definitely quite the method and is an interesting insight into someone elses style! With me, the world tends to come long before the actual story, most of my stories take place in worlds I've been working on for years before the story itself. In many cases the story is just an excuse to explore a world that I find interesting and want to show off. So its very curious to me to read about an approach thats almost the exact antithesis of mine. Its cool that it works for you tho!

 

[Zagaroth]

Thats definitely quite the method and is an interesting insight into someone elses style! With me, the world tends to come long before the actual story, most of my stories take place in worlds I've been working on for years before the story itself. In many cases the story is just an excuse to explore a world that I find interesting and want to show off. So its very curious to me to read about an approach thats almost the exact antithesis of mine. Its cool that it works for you tho!

For me, my stories all start with ideas about the characters. Then I have to figure out where the characters are that this idea or moment could take place in.

Everything else rolls out from there.

But as no one story explores or overshadows the entire world (I keep my power scaling relatively low for the MCs), I get to keep expanding on the setting via more stories. I have both a direct sequel and a stand-alone sequel brewing with several chapters each, and many other ideas getting played around with in notes.

I have wandered out from there occasionally now that I have some ground under my feet, so to speak. :) I have started mentally mapping the world in several ways outside of any planned stories. So I am doing a little of what you are doing, but it is by far the minority.

 

[TheBestofSome]

I talked with my cousins a lot and it seems like two main options are standing out to them. The first is to have pony magic develop in all kinds of wacky ways, sometimes changing their anatomy but sometimes not, with wings specifically only occurring in magic individuals but horns and other traits being able to manifest in all kinds of ways with or without magic. After all, spellcasting doesn't have to be horn based necessarily.

Then the second is to have horns and wings always be magic based, with pony subraces just needing to never have those specifically as their defining traits. But the way that a given kind of magic would manifest anatomically as a magical organ is dependant on subspecies. So like the deep pony would always get bat wings *if* they were a pegasus. The goat ponies would always get ram/goat-like horns if they developed magic. Etc.

These two options seem pretty decent to me. The first runs the risk of diluting the whole pony subraces thing, but that's not an insurmountable hurdle, just something you'll have to be careful of.

For the second, you'll want to be careful to present it to the reader in a way that makes sense, but I actually like it more than the first. The idea that magic would require some kind of physical foci resonates with me, but the ponies still get to have their specific markers that make each subrace unique.

I could see the magic-based mutation thing working if magic's something that's viewed with suspicion and those able to perform it tend to be shunned, but if it's something pretty much everyone has you're likely better off going with a different system.

One question, is the whole aristocracy are hoarding magic thing revealed to the general populace early in the story, or later?

I actually do my worldbuilding much the way Zagoroth does, only developing the parts I need for my story plus a few bits that are just fun to explore. It lets me easily hint at a wider world but keep things vague enough that once I need to make it more concrete I still have plenty of options and can twist the world to suit the story's needs. It seems to work, at least thus far; I've had multiple people tell me how much they liked my worldbuilding which surprised me quite a bit since I wasn't actually doing all that much worldbuilding, or that's how it seemed to me anyway. I was only developing the world as much as the story and characters needed.

But it is fascinating to see the opposite perspective, someone who plans out their entire world first and then crafts a story that fits into that world. There's no one right way to do it, of course, and each method comes with its own challenges.

 

[DaelyxLenAuphydas]

man, it is honestly a treat just to have someone even a little interested in my worldbuilding, haha. It means a lot to me.

The aristocracy hoarding magic thing would be... Hrm. Not super early in terms of word count I suppose, in that theres quite a bit that happens first. But in terms of the timeline I have plotted out and how deep into the setting it is I guess I'd say its relatively early since its the core of the first big story arc. It'll still take me a while to reach the climax of that first big story arc but I'm planning and hoping to have it keep going for a looong time after that too.

I dont necessarily think the pony subrace thing would be too diluted... If only because some of the 'subraces' are pretty drastic changes. Raptors are closer to a hippogryph than anything, with beaks and feathers and all.

Part of the idea of the story is running a fairly common trope/trend in reverse, where its kind of common for fantasy setting sto be about magic fading over time; I wanted to have a story about the opposite, magic growing in power and overtaking a technologically advanced civilization. So the aristocratic hoarding of magic is actually weakening the magic of the world and once the ritual is broken, magic starts becoming way more commonplace and leads to a huge upset of the balance of power.

Right now I'm just struggling to live with how much of a character I had to cut during extensive rewrites... Alas my poor Cailleach, they never had their chance to shine, even though they were so cute in what I did write...

Working on the pony subrace thing, a lot of it isnt even changing what actually happens but trying to figure out how to present it in a way that would make sense. Its difficult, since the opening of the story is pulling so much weight... It has to both set up the world and explain how things work while also hopefully being engaging, developing the characters, showcasing who they were before their character arcs, etc. I've spent so long finnagling around with the intro trying to get it all right, and now I need to do it even more once I finalize an understanding of how anatomy interacts with magic and subrace...

 

[TheBestofSome]

man, it is honestly a treat just to have someone even a little interested in my worldbuilding, haha. It means a lot to me.

So a not insignificant part of the story will be dealing with the fallout of magic suddenly popping up everywhere whereas before it was kind of a nobles thing and the average pony might have wanted to be able to do magic, but never expected that they could. There's a fascinating story that can be told in the center of that kind of chaos. Putting it at the end of the first arc is smart, since it lets the reader get familiar with how things were before, and that in turn gives the change more impact.

Did the ponies whose magic was being siphoned still grow/develop the physical magical attributes, e.g. horns, wings, etc., just without the accompanying magic? Or once the ritual is interrupted will there be a sudden 'boom' of that delayed development occurring? Or if they didn't develop it at the natural time, does it mean they never will? (That last one is kind of depressing, not gonna lie, but it would really drive home how terrible the aristocracy were for hoarding the people's magic.)

Don't try to explain too much about how the world works up front. You're better off drip-feeding exposition only where it's needed or where it can have some emotional connection to your characters. Give your readers just enough to avoid them becoming lost, at least at first. What's more important is establishing your characters' personalities, giving your readers someone to care about.

Ideally you have your readers eagerly latching on to every bit of exposition you give them and putting the world together in their heads, speculating about how this or that works. Too much, too soon, and you risk confusing and boring them, since they don't have a reason to care about the info, and even if they do, they might not be able to keep it all straight without grounding examples. You can't assume that they'll care about the world as much as you, since people tend to fall in love with characters first, and then care about the world because it's where those characters live, though there are of course exceptions.

For an example, just think of the world of Dark Souls. Its exposition is told almost exclusively through the environment, weapon flavor text, and similar context clues, but hundreds of thousands of people have fallen in love with that world. Part of that might be because they fought, struggled, failed, and ultimately succeeded in that world, but I digress. The point is that Dark Souls has a deep, rich history/lore, but it doesn't beat you over the head with it. It doesn't even unveil it through a carefully balanced storyline with cutscenes and such. Instead, it actually hides its lore; it makes you hunt it down and piece it together. Of course, being a game, you can't make a one-to-one comparison between Dark Souls and any book, but I hope I got my point across.

(You likely know all this already, but it's important enough that I figured I should say it anyway just in case.)

RIP Cailleach, may the essence of who you are be reborn, if perhaps in another role, with all your adorability intact. Having to cut a character, particularly one you spent a lot of time on, feels way too much like you're murdering them.

 

[DaelyxLenAuphydas]

So the magic coming back will be a huge upset in the balance of power for the world, kind of closer to the 'suddenly getting magic' answer but not necessarily all the way on that side. Not every pony will get magic but a lot of them will, and then when the aristocracy tries to get the situation under control they wind up making it worse by kind of forcing ponies who were otherwise loyalists to become rebels specifically because they got magic and the aristocracy are trying to get that under control.

What's kind of funny about the chat about worldbuilding is I was told the opposite a lot of the time when I was on the fimfic discord. That I focus too much on my characters, that its great that I like them so much but it wont be that interesting to prospective readers and I need to focus more on the story. And I usually said that I get that but theres a lot of character stuff I just need to set up early on since I need to show who the characters were before their arcs began and everything changed.

It's kind of a slow start because of that, so I've been meticulously pruning everything I consider non-vital (I cut like 7k words of the first few chapters during editting), trying to make it as engaging and reasonably-paced as possible while only sharing the details that are most important to understanding the story. But even then it still has to be a little slow, since there isnt that much that happens to the mane cast. A big part of the story to me is what I like calling an 'Antivillain cast', in the sense of 'villains act, heroes react'. The mane characters are in a stable, peaceful, relatively prosperous society, and actively choose to rebel against it without being forced into it in the hopes of making a new, better world. The mane character is themself an aristocrat and in a position of power but actively spurns that to pursue their own ambitions. I just really like the idea of protagonists being the driving force in the plot rather than just having things happen to them. They are the thing happening to the world.

And then ends up getting way more than they bargained for when they learn about the ritual and wind up collapsing the entire existing social order! Whoops! Ugh it's gonna be so good I'm so looking forward to it, I can't start posting until I get the art I'm commissioning for a cover back though... I'm so impatient! I love my story honestly, possibly too much since I know its not something that has a lot of appeal for people other than me. It's just kinda in that weird no-man's land between original and fanfiction, where people who want fanfiction would find it too original and people who want original would assume it was fanfiction. So I'm kinda just trying to throw everything I can at the wall to try and at least give it a fighting chance. Doubly so because taking MLP inspiration means theres a tonal disconnect where people who would find a more mature and serious story engaging might be thrown off by the association with that brand.

But I love my story. And I shall fight tooth and nail for it! Even when that means cutting Cailleach... Poor Cailleach. I originally had like ten mane characters but during pruning and condensing and generally trying to make the story more fast paced and engaging, some characters got merged and now theres seven. Cailleach was the little brother of one of the merged characters, who already has two other siblings so they didnt need another. But! the character concept lives on! I don't know when... But sooner or later I will introduce a new character who will inherit Cailleach's legacy! Probably some ways into the story. I dunno when. But it shall!

 

[Puji-Maki]

Just skip the problem overall. If there's a plot hole, just let it bleed.

 

[TheBestofSome]

Well, if they actually read some of your work then I'd be inclined to take their advice into consideration; I'm only giving general advice based on common pitfalls. Seven main characters is quite a lot to ask your readers to care about right off the bat, though it's certainly doable.

One thing to keep in mind is that you don't need quite as fast a pace depending on the length of your story. The average novel needs to get going faster because it has less room to tell its story. An epic can take a lot more time, though of course you can't have nothing happening. Just look at Lord of the Rings. It takes ages for Frodo to leave the Shire, but there's the fun of the birthday party to keep things from dragging, then the rising uneasiness over Bilbo's ring (which of course turns out to be the One Ring). Then come the Black Riders- but you get my point. It takes a while for Tolkien to really get his adventure started, but he doesn't bore you in the meantime.

I do hope you find your audience (or the other way round), though, because the concepts do sound interesting. There's definitely a fascinating story in there, if you can tease it out.

 

[A_the_king_of_all]

This will be a boring answer but I just grab my online friends off discord, Make them sit in a DND campain and make them Play out the scenario so I can just make stuff up for the novel.