Ooh ooh my expertise hell yeah!
Alrighty, strap in! Imma add some stuff.
There's this thing called the vowel triangle. Or rather, there are two things that can be called that. We're going to ignore the one that goes into acoustics because this isn't about that and I'm not up for explaining formants and resonances right now. You can ask me about it if you want, though, I’m happy to go into it.
There are three main parts of vocal anatomy that shape the vowels: The lips, the tongue, and the jaw. Specifically, if the lips are rounded or relaxed or even stretched, if the tongue is raised or lowered, and if the jaw is open or closed.
This is what the vowel triangle means: on each corner you have one extreme: rounded lips for [u], raised tongue for [i] and open jaw for [a]. (These are the IPA notations for the sounds, not the English letters). The other possible vowels go in between: [e] is rather close to [i] but with a slightly more open jaw and lower tongue, and [ε] and [æ] even moreso. [o] is slightly more open than [u], followed by some more sounds that I can't write on my keyboard. Between [u] and [i], we have some fun stuff like [y], [ø] and [œ], although those last two aren't exactly on the line.
TL,DR: Basically, what you need to know (especially for writing) is that certain vowels are formed by a raised tongue, by rounded lips, and by an open jaw. The closer you get to [a], the more open the jaw gets, with a rather low tongue and relaxed lips. The closer you get to [u], the rounder the lips, with rather closed jaw and still rather low tongue. The closer you get to [i], the higher the tongue, with a closed jaw and relaxed, if not stretched, lips.
Some languages, like French for example, have nasal sounds: [ã], [õ], and the other three that my little old phone keyboard doesn't want me to write out. There's some nuance there, but basically, these are formed by saying the base vowel with a lowered soft palate.
You see, usually, when speaking "normal" vowels, the soft palate is raised, closing off the nasal cavity from the oral cavity. This way, the airflow only escapes through the mouth, not the nose. You can test this by saying a vowel and holding your hand in front of your face - there should not be any air coming out your nose. If there is and you can't "turn it off," you might want to go see a speech therapist.
By lowering the soft palate, the nasal cavity is opened. Part of the airflow is diverted through the sinuses, allowing the sound of your voice to resonate through them. This changes the sound of the vowel you're trying to say, making it nasal.
The nasal quality your speech gains when you're congested actually comes from the opposite effect: the congestion does not allow airflow through the nasal cavity, so some consonants that rely on that cannot be properly articulated anymore.
I won't go into every single way to articulate a consonant here. There are way too many and it's much too complicated and not relevant for a post like this, which is supposed to be about writing tips. Again, ask me if you have questions. I'm not an expert on speech, linguistics, or anything like that, but my singing training gives me a decent amount of knowledge on articulation.
Apart from lips, jaw, and tongue, all three of which play a huge part in consonant as well as vowel articulation, many more parts of the anatomy get to be involved with consonants: teeth, hard and soft palate, uvula, throat and glottis.
Before we go on, I just want to explain what the glottis is: it's the space between your vocal folds. Not the vocal folds/vocal chords themselves (again, if you want to know about the difference between these terms, go ahead and ask me), but the opening in between.
Certain sounds, like [h], the glottal plosive (basically the little noise that happens when you start a word on a vowel in many languages like English or German), or certain clicking sounds in some languages are created in the glottis.
Moving on up, there are certain sounds that can be pronounced in slightly different places: [x] for example is a uvular sound (made with the uvula/back part of the soft palate) in German, but a pharyngeal sound (made at the back of the throat) in Slavic languages. The resulting sounds are recognisably similar, but just different enough to identify an accent.
[r] tends to be uvular (French and German for example) or alveolar (meaning at the part of the palate just behind the front teeth) (any language that rolls its r) in most languages. English is a bit of an outlier with what Wikipedia calls a "postalveolar approximant." That's a mouthful. Literally.
Let's go with bullet points from here on:
Alveolar: tongue goes up against the alveoles, those being the little bumps on the palate just behind the front teeth. Consonants that are articulated here: [l], [s], [z], [n], [d], [t]
Labial: made with the lips, specifically closing them: [m], [b], [p]
Labiodental: lower lip against upper teeth: [v] and [f]
Fricative: a sound that has some friction to it, or at least that's how I made myself rememver the word. [Θ] (non vocalised (th) in English), [δ] (vocalised (th)), [s], [z], [x], [ç], the sounds for (sh) and (j) (which my keyboard doesn't allow for), and the likes.
Vocalised vs non-vocalised:
Does your consonant have some voice to it or not?
For example, [f] is the same as [v], except the latter has voice/is vocalised, the former is not.
[z] is vocalised, [s] is not.
My keyboard, again, does not have the IPA symbols for the sounds of English (sh) and (j), but yeah - (sh) isn't vocaised, while (j) is.
In many German dialects, [x] is the non-vocalised version of [r].
There are a few groups of consonants (that I know of) that are basically the same:
The labial consonants (made by closing the lips) [m], [b] and [p]: [m] is vocalised, [b] is a vocalised plosive, [p] is a non-vocalised plosive.
Same goes for some of the alveoar sounds (made with the tongue against the upper teeth) [n], [d] and [t].
And the velar sounds (made with the soft palate, specifically the soft palate lowering and closing against the back of the tongue) [η], [g] and [k].
I think that's the basics covered. Forgive me if I forgot something important or if I made mistakes - I'm a little sick right now and don't have access to all of my two braincells or to do any deeper research than "aw heck, is [n] labiodental? Oh, no it's not, obviously, you know that, why would you even think that?"
Again, do feel free to ask me about stuff in more detail. I can hold entire lectures on the way the human voice works. In fact, I have done so before. And I am willing to ramble on about it.
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