hi thank you sm for the ask! to be honest i don't really think i'm super great writer, but as far as my history with it goes... well, i'm getting a fine arts degree with an emphasis on writing, but i'm only a freshman in college, so i guess that doesn't really count. otherwise i don't have any special education in writing aside from a single creative writing class i took in high school and the fact that i skipped a grade in english. i do really love to read, though.

you know what they say about artists? how in order to get really good at drawing you just need to pick a fictional character to obsessively draw over and over and over? writing is kind of similar in my opinion. (or like, analysis for writing is.) i read the pjo/hoo series over and over and over and got so obsessed with analyzing nico di angelo that any time we get a single new scrap of information about him i can write a thread about what this means for his character or his backstory or whatever. he and project sekai have really changed how i view media, especially characters.

the book bird by bird by anne lamott (that's an amazon link) also really changed how i view writing. i recommend it to anyone that asks me for tips. i have to add the disclaimer that it was published in 1995 and some of the language is problematic and/or outdated, but the writing advice is incredible. (i'll be summing up some of the advice from it later in this answer when i give you some tips, because i don't want you to feel pressured into spending money unless you want some more information. i'd link a pdf of the book if i could find one).

writing is a hobby for me but i also have to do it. there's something in me that has always itched to tell stories, whether it be through playing pretend on the playground, doing theatre in high school, or putting a fic out there on ao3 during the height of quarantine because i just... had to.

you also learn through trial and error - my sister (my beta reader) and i have an inside joke about how once i wrote about tanjirou from demon slayer doing his taxes for about a thousand words. once they made me rewrite almost an entire chapter of windows because of how terrible it was. (it was chapter 7. chapter 7 is now one of my favorite chapters in the fic so far). so while i feel strongly about 'don't give criticism unless it's asked for' as a general rule, also... don't be afraid to ask for criticism. it's just that random people on ao3 aren't the best place to look for it. if you have any trusted friends that write, ask them. make friends with other people who write or who's character-related takes you agree with and bounce ideas off of them.

but even more importantly: do not be afraid of writing things that are bad. don't speak about writing as if it's a chore or a pain. as someone who likes to write, you know firsthand that language matters. don't be too hard on yourself. in order for others to love your writing, you have to love writing. this goes hand in hand with some other stuff i've heard over the years, like, 'if something is boring to write, it's boring to read'. readers can tell when you care about what you're writing about.

while i'm kind of focusing on fanfic writing here i want to stress that fanfic writing is writing. i do quite a lot of my own original writing on the side and my approach to it hardly changes. respecting your own fanfic writing as writing in its own right will do a lot for you.

here are some tips i've collected from doing peer reviews, reading work on ao3, and being a writer myself:

1. your first draft is going to be bad. do not, under any circumstances, expect your first draft to be good. if you're one of those people that writes something and then publishes it without rereading it at least once... just stop. i actually can link an excerpt from bird by bird here, which i think is required reading for anyone that writes. if you haven't read it, read it.
   now, i bring up this 'write a first draft and then immediately publish it' habit because of other reasons. i used to obsess over every sentence as i was writing and it would kill my creativity. don't do that to yourself! just write what you can -- get that story out on the page -- and then edit it later into the best it can be. no one writes perfect first drafts. as a writer i spend almost more time editing than i do actually writing. the editing phase is important. i've done about six rounds of editing on the first scene of windows 11 alone and when i'm done answering this i'll be on to my seventh.
   that being said, i'm the opposite way -- i write extremely simple first drafts and then add to them as i edit. my first drafts look like scripts. this is because writing emotion often doesn't come naturally to me. whatever you find most natural to you, go with it!

2. however... like i said earlier, language is important. don't just throw words on the page because they sound cool (while you're editing, i mean). is it in character? does it make sense? would it be right for that character in react in that way? to reply in that way? this seems obvious, but it's not. make sure your characters are cohesive. feel free to play with your writing to fit your characters, too: do their emotions affect their worldview? how do you show that through your syntax? a reminder here that when you're writing in third person the narrator becomes a separate character, tasked with writing down the thoughts of the protagonist.

3. i tweeted about this earlier, but -- your characters are human beings. even if they're the most traumatized people on earth, they're human beings. i see this happen with fic quite often and i need it to stop. give your characters some humanity! readers need an entry point. we need to see a daily life -- some essence of normalcy -- before we can watch a character go off the deep end. i always ask myself what my characters like to do in their free time, free of any sort of expectation, stress, or trauma. even if i never mention it in my writing.

4. some writers really love to choose a trope and then fit characters into those roles like a game of mix and match. that's not a good way to do it. i don't even think about tropes when i'm writing... it's really really easy way to limit yourself and also to mischaracterize your characters. to put it simply you cannot write an akito/touya enemies to lovers fic without greatly mischaracterizing both of them; it just doesn't work. you can't force your characters into acting a certain way they're not meant to act. this is an issue i have with a lot of prsk fic honestly -- stop seeing fic writing as 'playing with tropes'. it's a cheap way of looking at character, narrative, and writing itself.

5. speaking of character. when i say they're people, i mean it. often times the process of coming up with a character is like getting to know someone. you learn how they act and then you learn why they act that way. this is admittedly a hard thing to explain, and is more important in original work than fic writing, but... as a writer, you are not 'god'. you cannot see your characters as pawns. you are simply a fly on the wall writing down what's happening. this is part of why it doesn't work to force characters into a plot or a trope -- it's ingenuine. let your characters bump around each other and a plot will come to you naturally.

6. descriptive language isn't everything. do not force yourself to use figurative language in every sentence, that's not how it works. sometimes the air is just cold. sometimes the sky is just blue. sometimes people just say things. overused figurative language is tiring to read and takes away from the few instances of it that are beautiful. there is not a single person on earth who comes up with a simile or metaphor for every single thing and i guarantee you your protagonist is not that way either. i've read a lot of fic that tries to be 'beautiful' in its language and just comes off as melodramatic and cringey. it's okay to be simple. sometimes simplicity is even more beautiful than metaphor.

7. i don't really have a preference between writing from a pre-existing plot vs writing something as it comes to you, i've sort of done both, where i have a very basic framework for a plot and then add details as i continue writing chapters. both kinds of writing are okay. i think for chapter-by-chapter writing, like multi-chapter fic writing, having a basic plot in mind is good because you have to work in chunks, and once something is published, it's published. you can't really go back.

that's about all i really have at the moment. if you have any other questions for me i'd be happy to answer them. i've really just been writing for a long time and improved that way. i hope this was somewhat helpful. good luck on your future writing endeavors! i know it can seem taxing but it really is worth it! :D