The story isn't set in stone and can change if needed.

1. Audiobooks are amazing and you should listen to some. Are you a writer that hates reading like I do? Audiobooks are probably for you.

2. Pull from sources outside your chosen genre. Genre mixing and pulling tropes from other sources can actually spice up your writing quite a bit.

3. Procrastination is not unproductive. You don't need to be writing all the time, sometimes the best way to move forward is to slack off and let the inspiration come to you.

4. Remember, you control your characters fate. I know you love your characters and you want to keep them safe I know I do. Just remember you CAN put your characters through hell and have them be okay in the end. This one sounds super obvious but its an important mantra to have.

5. Fail faster. All your ideas are stupid. That's okay. When you get right down to it MOST story ideas are dirt stupid and cliche. Don't let it bother you and keep iterating til its NOT stupid anymore.

6. Don't feel like everything needs to be explained. Take the walking dead for instance where nobody knows what started the zombie apocalypse. I believe the author once suggested it was aliens but later came out and said it wasn't but the real reason was 'stupid'. I bet you dollars to donuts its STILL aliens but it also doesn't matter where the zombies came from the drama is in surviving now that they're here. Ditto why the Joker never really had a definitive origin in Batman comics. Sometimes the mystery itself is better than any answer you can come up with. Even if you have one the audience doesn't always need to know. Keep some secrets for yourself.

7. Not everything has to matter. Don't be afraid to wander off the main plot to do some world building and decompress.

1. I've learned not to think too hard about what I'm writing. There's no use in planning out every scene and every character trait, because all that does is muddle the natural progression. I've had one story I've been sitting on for three years, writing bits and pieces here and there of random scenes, and it was only recently when I decided to sit down and go for it with minimal direction and outlining did I manage to pump out thousands of (hopefully) well written prose. I have two other works I'm currently posting that are written with the same technique, and they've surprised even me with their content. Some writers can plan everything out to the last detail, but I'm not that person.

2. Some people flourish under attention, some wilt. Personally, my imagination takes a steep decline the moment I realize someone else is going to be reading what I write. It's something psychological (relating to the "creating for yourself 'fallacy'"), where I feel like I have expectations placed on me to make the story a certain way. I've realized I write better when I don't put too much thought in how readers will respond to it (no one ever comments, so I'll never know what they're thinking either way!) I am a firm believer of a work being written with minimal external influence, so it's truly a brain child of the author/writer, something truly mine. Try not to be embarrassed or afraid to express yourself and your personal brand of creativity through your writing. The only expectations you should be trying to meet are your own! So, I plan on completing my next work completely before posting to bypass that issue completely.

3. Write what you want, how badly you want, because EDITING is a thing. I will not post a chapter without reading it three times over (still missing spelling errors, yay!), which means that I can have fun during the creation process. If you restrain yourself from putting everything on the paper/word document, you're limiting your story's potential. It's fine to be weird and cringe-y and word vomit all over your draft, BECAUSE it's a draft. If the words don't flow, fix it later. If the dialogue's weird, fix it later. If there are too many commas, get rid of them! While editing. If there's something you want to add or remove, you can do that at your own leisure while editing. Personally, I'm better at editing a work than writing from scratch, so it's doubly helpful to keep editing in mind while I write.

4. If you have a scene you really want to write out but you haven't reached that part yet, write it anyway. You'll forget about it later, or when you finally write it, it won't turn out how you expected it would. Write what you're inspired to while you have the motivation, because it helps you figure out what you're building up towards and keeps you from rushing. And if the scene doesn't fit the final draft? It's easy to scrap it, than to mess with your entire work leading up to it because you've been itching to write it.

I was disciplined to keep the story to make sense and consistent.

When you make an established ground rule, you try not to alienate it or subvert it and if there are some changes you have to explain it but must be earlier than later.

Like Kakashi from naruto where he suddenly use a mangekyou Sharingan in shippuden and he has it this whole time and he never use it in part 01 and nothing explained why he didn't.

And most importantly when it comes to the main character, when he achieved something, they must make it feel that he/she earned it and serve a good purpose in the story because that is our main focus.

AND NO PLOT HOLES AND AWFULLY EXECUTED SUBVERSION!

These are few, but good ones.

THERE'S SO MUCH GOOD ADVICE HERE ALREADY

Wow~ I almost don't know what I could add; let's see...

1. Do what you have to do in your own way. Every story needs a few boring scene descriptions, or character descriptions...you just gotta have descriptions in general. In case it's not patently obvious already, I don't like descriptions. ^^; So I try to make them as fun as possible by taking advantage of the narrative voice.
   When I'm writing 'pretty', I go full on poetic, swapping nouns for adjectives and just writing what I feel, even if it doesn't make complete literal sense. And when I'm writing from some character's POV, I make sure they comment on things they would notice, like whether a guy is really hot or whether the antagonist's shoes look really expensive.
   It makes things so much more interesting than going 'man with red hair on green grass', and it helps solidify your narrative voice.

2. Like others have said, word vomit + editing is actually a great way to write. From comic scripts to prose, I find that just dashing in some placeholder text to get you to the next scene can save you from spending hours agonizing over one line of dialogue. And when you come back to that spot you vomited on, you may find that (a) the vomit doesn't actually look that bad, or (b) you know exactly what needed to be there, now that you've written past it.

3. When in doubt, cut stuff out. I've found this has helped me a lot recently when working on my older stories, where the me from 2 or 4 years ago set everything up with a million little details that absolutely HAD to be included.
   Well, guess what? They didn't. I've gotten rid of bushels of narrative garbage in the last few months, and my stories and I are still alive and well and, dare I say, better off for it.
   Sometimes simplifying is the best thing you can do for yourself when a story just isn't working, because it shows you exactly what is preventing it from working, and dares you to find a way to write the story without it. And you CAN write the story without it. Don't let the fear that 'you're not creative enough' or 'you'll never come up with an idea that good again' tie you down to a clunky story.
   You can always keep the old draft and start a completely new one with the fresh ideas. That way, even if the simplified version ends up worse than the original (in my experience, not likely) you can go back to that original. Or you can refer to parts of the original to help develop the new draft. Let your old writing AID your new writing, not confine it.

Tense can be used effectively to establish character, set mood, or anything else you need it to. I've started experimenting with this more and more since I came from a background of "only use past tense because it's already happened" and that's pretty much all I really notice reading. A character thinking in one tense instead of another can be telling of how they perceive their world. Likewise, a story in present tense will read different than one written in past tense. I have read one novella where present and past tense were used to great effect, depending on what was happening ("Final Girls" by Mira Grant).

Formatting and punctuation can do the same thing, too. "Middlegame" by Seanan McGuire does this really well by writing "We got it wrong we got it wrong we got it wrong" During specific parts of the book. (I'm a huge Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant love, so I reference her books often, especially since I write in a completely different genre. )

You can experiment with everything in a book to get the effect you're looking for, whether that's characterization, setting, or atmosphere.

Everyone has their own process. By this I mean the great Plotter vs Pantser debate that pops up in writing groups all over the place. Just because one person swears by a certain process, doesn't mean it will work for you. Take your time, write often. You will soon develop your own process, whether it's spending months researching every detail and ironing out the entire story before you ever put pen to paper, or going in entirely blind and letting things happen. I personally am a world-building pantser. I come up with a setting, ironing out most of the details and history, then find the cool stories that I can tell in it. I blame playing D&D for nearly 30 years.

Just Write. It doesn't need to be good. It doesn't even need to be something you intend on showing anyone... It can be as half-assed as you can be bothered to make it. Doesn't even need to be a full story. This point is simply to get you in the habit of writing. Waiting for inspiration is like waiting to win the lottery. This is fine if you want to remain an amateur, but if you want to be a professional about it, especially if you want to make a living out of it, you need to build the habit.

Draft 0 is your friend! Something I've recently come across is the idea of a "draft 0". This one is mostly geared towards pantsers but plotters can probably make good use out of this too. That is, where you just word vomit all over everything, with no intent to use any of it in the subsequent drafts. Make mistakes. To hell with proper grammar. Can't figure out how that scene's gonna play out? So what, put [Protag busts out of this trap by doing something totally awesome!] and move on. When you finish, you've already figured out how it's mostly gonna work. Now go back and write it properly. Maybe there's some stuff in there that's not so bad with some editing.

Oh, and that's another thing. Stuck? WRITE NOTES TO YOURSELF! In the advice above I mentioned using brackets or paragraphs for getting past where you're stuck to come back and write later. In the same vein, this is also good for notes to yourself. I use square [ ] brackets for "this scene needs to go here", curly { } brackets/braces for notes when I'm on a roll and can't tab over to my notes file, and parenthesis ( ) for things that, as I'm writing, are going to need definite editing or I'm not 100% certain I want it to play out that way.

Speaking of notes, I'm going to advocate something commonly used in television. Invest in a Show Bible! A show bible in television and film is like the go-to Master Document. It's got all the character profiles, designs, set decisions, photos, notes, plot lines, plot twists, background information that may never actually be seen or heard by the audience, etc etc. It's the primary reference file. Plotters probably already make these without realizing them, but pansters.... My dudes... My brethren... I cannot stress this enough. As you're pantsing your way through your story, and you're building character and world elements, backstories, etc.... WRITE THEM DOWN! I cannot begin to tell you how many beginning and even intermediate writers I've seen have just... so, so many continuity errors because they didn't write details down. Make a show bible document. Chronicle literally everything.

And finally, I'm gonna finish with a bit of advice for plotters from a pantser..... Don't be afraid to let your characters out of your grasp. Yes, I know. It's kinda scary letting your characters and plot run off with itself. It goes against everything you've ever had planned... But to quote Bob Ross, There are no mistakes, just happy accidents. Which is to say, let them run around a bit. No one ever needs to know this happened. Heck, you may like what you come up with while in a good flow better than what you had planned. If you don't, just delete it and go back to business. If you do, enjoy it. The only person that needs to know your story went off the pre-destined rails is you.

And that's pretty much all the insight from writing for 24 years I've go that hasn't been covered already.

1. Writers block can almost always be cured by reading.

2. To create realistic dialogue, I sometimes read my writing out loud. If I don't feel like a total idiot then it is probably good.

3. Double and triple check your writing. I sometimes find errors in chapters I published weeks ago.

4. Be patient, don't worry if it takes a few months for your stories to start taking off.

5. People are just as likely to say mean things as they are to say nice things.

1. Don't treat your writing like something sacred.
   I find this is very important. Sometimes you get so attached to the plot/characters/anything you're writing that you miss glaring errors or dismiss any and every critique. It becomes hard to accept responses that are not positive. Sometimes you like it so much that you want it to stay the way it is, when a little change here and there could elevate the quality of your work. Love what you write, be proud of it, but don't treat it like a child who could do no wrong. It will backfire.

2. Edit, edit, edit.
   Write however and whatever you want, leave it, and come back later to edit. I find leaving what I've done for a week or two and then coming back helps me see what I need to fix more clearly.

3. Your work will not be the next LOTR, HP, or {insert popular series}.
   Write what you want, regardless of anything. Recognition and validation are great, but just write your story the way you want. Put away thoughts about popularity or who will like your work. If YOU like it, that's more than good. Put all your love and effort, and in time people can sense it through your work.

LOTR became popular after Tolkien's death. Initially it was subject to harsh criticism. His publisher called his work trash. Years after his death the book jumped into popularity and inspired a good chunk of western fantasy elements (fictional races, magical realms, invented languages). He never did get to enjoy his fame -- but he still wrote it regardless what others said.

This is super inspirational!

Hope this isn't too obvious, but I've learned that planning out the plot of your story ahead of time can work wonders for it. Know how your story ends. Thats how you get continuity.