E S S A Y S
Writing Dawn/Andrew: A General Look by Rach
The intention of this essay is to provide some general pointers for anyone looking to write a Dawn/Andrew fic. None of the information on this site is intended as a definitive guide, and as the nature of fanfiction allows pretty much anything to happen, an essay covering everything you could ever be likely to come up with would be impossible to write.
But it is easy to give tips, and mention a few things not to forget, which is what I'm going to try to do here.
1. Decide when your fic is set
While this may sound obvious, it's a crucial step in getting your fic to sound right. If it's set during season six, Dawn is much less self aware, and Andrew's evil. That's going to be a slight stumbling block. But if you have a plan, you can get around it. Just make sure you have that plan before you start.
2. Characterisation is key
Knowing how the characters operate separately is just as important as understanding them as a couple. Rewatching episodes and checking how they interact with the other characters, as well as each other, wouldn't hurt any, and would help you with each of their individual 'voices'. For example, it's unlikely Andrew would suddenly become confident and suave when around Dawn, if anything, he'd probably be the opposite. We've seen enough of Andrew to know that while he likes to play a part, he can also be very nervous and this nervousness would more than likely come out to play around Dawn.
3. The language of love
We've seen Dawn get defensive around boys. She likes to try and impress them, as we've seen with Kevin in The Body, Justin in All The Way, and RJ in Him. Andrew would be different, as he's someone that she knows and has known for a while. She's a lot more grown up than she was when she had her giggly little-girl crush on Xander, too.
As for Andrew - we've never seen any evidence on how he'd go about hitting on someone that he likes. That's where your imagination comes in here - it's possible that there would be an unusually high amount of pop-culture references.
4. Don't make your Andrew too geeky
Yes, he's a goof. But that's not all he is. Don't have him screw up his chances with Dawn for the sake of it - only do it if it's really going to further your plot.
Like I said - just a few pointers, but they should get you started. Check out the other, more specific essays on the site to take a deeper look at the different aspects of Andrew and Dawn.