oooh, thank you for the ask!! ok, so:
11. Three tropes that are fine but overrated.
honestly, I love a lot of tropes (lol @ myself, earlier, looking through a list of tropes and desperately scrolling to find one I don't love - like literally give me a soulmark au anyday), but the ones that aren't my favorites are:
1. Regency/Royalty AUs - I love, love period dramas, but often I feel like when fics are written with this trope, the characters feel totally off for me. There's not a lot in the royai fandom, but definitely in some other ones I've been in.
2. Virgin!fics - I just don't consider it to be all that accurate (for royai, anyway - it could definitely work more for other fandoms/pairings, depending). Like, even for Riza, I really don't think her back tattoo prevented her from having sex at least once (excluding/before Roy) - in my opinion, anyway! I find general inexperience is more fun to play with then straight up virgin fics.
3. major character death - I will usually avoid reading something involving this, because it usually makes me big sad. :( not that it can't be well done, butttt yeah haha. I love some good angst, but I don't enjoy when it's too angsty. also for royai, I'm like... at least let them have some happiness, jeez?
but honestly, any trope can be cool and interesting depending on how the writer does it! and, like, whatever floats your boat, ya know?
20. Do you work on a single project or many at the same time? How does that work for you?
okay, so this depends on my mood, and current wip hyperfixation, but generally I do enjoy working on multiple at once. it's nice to be able to switch between projects when you get stuck... but sometimes it's also nice to focus on one thing.
28. Any writing advice that works for you and you feel like sharing?
so writing advice can be very... self-specific, if that makes sense? i find a lot of writing advice out there that's supposed to be geared towards anyone sometimes doesn't always work for everyone. but! a few things that I find helpful for myself are:
1. don't believe the voice in your head telling you that your writing is awful - that is the devil talking, lol. let it sit for a bit, and come back, and I promise that it'll be better when you're reading it using a different mindset. it's happened to me so many times where I'm like "this is fucking awful why did I ever write this" and then I reread it a few days/weeks/months later and I'm like "wait, this is actually good??" it just needs to simmer for a bit.
2. as stated earlier, let your writing sit for a bit, especially while editing, or trying to figure out transitions or plot holes. I'll get really frustrated with an issue sometimes, and believe it's impossible to fix - but mostly that's just me hitting a wall. if I let it sit for a while, and stop reading my own words for a bit (i basically get sick of my own writing lol), then suddenly a lot of the problems are a lot easier to solve.
3. keep a list of words/phrasing that you like - then you have a reference to look at when you're struggling with word choice. super helpful, as I often get stuck with descriptions, and then I have a nice little list to use as reference.
4. skip over stuff that you're struggling with in the initial writing process - can't think of a name? add it later! not sure how to describe something? skip it and come back! don't like your word choice? fix it later! basically don't fixate on small details, as it can always be added in later. this is why I always have to tell myself that editing is not as bad as I blow it up to be in my head, because honestly the best parts of my writing usually happen during the editing process.
i don't know how helpful those are, but yeah!
