PSA for people with "bad cursive handwriting" but who would like to improve it: Write with FOUNTAIN PENS. Ideally on thicker paper, with something soft below (like more paper for example).

Different writing systems evolved alongside different utensils. Cursive evolved to be written with a quill or a fountain pen. Ballpoint pens are an amazing invention and they have their place, but they optimize for price and practicality, not necessarily for an æsthetically pleasing legible outcome. People say they have "bad handwriting" but their setup is a Bic pen on a thin sheet of paper on top of a hard surface: well, everyone's handwriting is bad in this setup.

In France, back when I went to school, not sure now, though I hope it hasn't changed, as a child, you'd only be allowed to use fountain pens. Kids learning to write have constantly stained hands while they learn to use it properly, almost as a rite of passage. I'm very thankful to have learned it like that.

As a left handed person, fountain pens are basically a no-go. What actually helped improve my handwriting was not doing cursive, but writing each letter individually, which forces me to pause between each letter. Still using the lower case forms (though I did try all caps for a while), but just forcing myself to slow down. Still have problems with 9 vs 4 though

> In France, back when I went to school, not sure now, though I hope it hasn't changed, as a child, you'd only be allowed to use fountain pens. Kids learning to write have constantly stained hands while they learn to use it properly, almost as a rite of passage. I'm very thankful to have learned it like that.

In Slovenia, back when I went to school, we all learned with fountain pens and cursive. From 1st to 8th grade you were required to write in fountain pain. If you turned in an assignment written in pencil, it was legit for the teacher to use their eraser and give you an F for turning in empty paper. (They never did this but threatened it a lot).

As soon as high school hit, the restriction lifted and we could use any utensil and whatever font as long as it was legible. Everyone switched to ballpoint pens and some bastardized combination of print and cursive.

I still use my specific combo of print and cursive today, it's like encryption. Very fast to write, very slow sometimes impossible to read. And that's okay, it turns out that anything I write down by hand gets etched into my memory forever. Just seeing the rough shape of the letters brings it back. Sometimes just seeing roughly what page of my notebook it's on is enough to remember what I was thinking.

I agree. The thing with fountain pens that many sibling commenters miss is that they run the ink so much more smoothly, which means you can use much less force when guiding the pen. It's not just pining for the old ways but that the writing feels completely different with a different class of tool.

I spent a bunch of time working through https://www.briem.net/free-books/handwriting-repair and am really satisfied with the improvement.

No, fountain pens have a "cool" factor and can be made for decorative stuff, but that's it.

Sure the super cheap bic pens that come in boxes of 100 aren't great, but that's because they're cheap (besides being inexpensive). Something like those G2 gel pens that are also available everywhere for not very much (fairly inexpensive, but not pejorative-cheap) these days work just fine.

I tried fountain pens for a bit back in grad school, but they honestly weren't great. They were imprecise, blobby, scritchy on the paper. Subscripts and superscripts would smear out. The best experience, IMHO, was a 0.5 mm mechanical pencil, but those smeared, so I eventually switched to pilot v5 or muji pens.

But that sounds like math, not cursive, you say? Well, yes, but there are paragraphs of thinking and doodling and argument in there with the math. My point is that fountain pens seem optimized for some kinds of writing, but certainly don't have a monopoly on all sorts of putting pen on paper.

I we had the same here in the Netherlands. Never helped me one bit. I even had to go to after-school handwriting coaching. My handwriting is still horrible.

I think my main problem is that handwriting is so slow. I get impatient and rush it turning it into a mess. Reading it is also slow, even when written by someone with good handwriting it's a PITA to read cursive. I hope it dies out sooner rather than later.

I write almost exclusively with fountain pens, and it hasn't helped my handwriting at all. Not sure why you think it would help.

As I am mainly left-handed, I learned to like writing with a nice wooden pencil, like Faber-Castell, and a sharpener. Then, if it is something serious and if it is possible to use a felt pen, I use Staedtler or Faber-Castell felt pens in different sizes. I hate ballpoint pens.

> Write with FOUNTAIN PENS. Ideally on thicker paper, with something soft below (like more paper for example).

I love fountain pens. Well-made ones are elegant and feel good to write with. I love the look and feel of certain kinds of permanent black and blue-black ink that you can’t find for ballpoint.

They were extremely useful in dealing with hand cramps at a time I was doing a lot of mathy stuff for work (tens of pages of derivation a day for a while). They retrained my hand to not push on the page so hard and not grip the pen so hard. That eliminated most of the problem.

That said, they have had no effect on my handwriting. Which was bad-to-mediocre before and remains bad-to-mediocre now.

As an alternative, for people who dislike fountain pens -or stained hands-, I'd suggest a Tombow Fudenosuke marker pen. There're two variants, with a softer or harder tip, and there's a pack with both so it's easy to try both. The softer one produces a heavier result.

There are other brands, of course; Pentel has a similar marker and some other smaller brands too. I just think the Tombow is very nice and easy enough to find.

These pens are sort of the modern version of the Japanese calligraphy brush, so they're nice for writing but much more practical.

Any tips for lefties? I find in very difficult to avoid complete smudgification of everything I write with a fountain pen, since it takes so much longer for the ink to dry.

I disagree about the thicker paper part. It's the "sizing" of the paper that's important, that's the preparation of the paper that makes it more or less absorbent. Moleskine/Lechturn and similar notebooks have a sizing on the paper that makes it less absorbent and easier for a fountain pen to glide over. Printer paper is way more absorbent and creates more drag causing you to use more effort. Source: I use a cheapish but decent Lamy fountain pen on both kinds of paper, and I write cursive and shorthand for speed, but print for long term legibility.

Went through school in France too, was forced to use a fountain pen too, had my hands soaked in ink at the end of every day too. Except it never went away, and my handwriting is still awful.

Years of every teacher I had writing in red at the top of every test or homework "Applique-toi!", as if this injunction was all that was required for me to finally realize I had been holding the pen wrong for over 15 years. Fuck that, I'm glad it's over.

I will gladly celebrate the death of handwriting when it comes, that we may focus on more important matters and stop judging books by their covers.

I grade my university students' work with Herbin Violette Pensée ink and a Platinum Plaisir fountain pen. The symmetry of using a student's ink to grade students' work tickles me.

For other people who grade big stacks of papers, nota bene: fountain pens with a soft nib are a lifesaver! They require almost no writing pressure, which is so much more comfortable. You also get to use fun ink colors.

I picked up a fountain pen during lockdown out of sheer boredom and was shocked at how much better my handwriting looked

Tools definitely matter. If fountain pens just aren't practical or not your thing, modern pens like the uni jetstream are excellent as well.

Absolutely. Fountain pens are the way to go - with one I can write beautifully, with a BIC or Biro it’s a spidery mess.

Any suggestions on how to get into fountain pens? I handwrite a lot, but fountain pens have always intimidated me.

In Poland you started with a pencil, but as you got more proficient you could switch to a fountain pen. I never did.

As a leftie I was forced to do exercised designed for "normal" children, that were just painful. Thinking about using "normal" scissors with my left hand makes me sad and angry almost 40 years later. But I do enjoy a nice fountain pen and a thick paper - it's relaxing.

I understand liking fountain pens for their "old school steam punk" factor, but I think recommending them to improve your cursive is a little nutty.

I love writing by hand, and for years I was looking for the ideal instrument. Frankly, all the big "pen enthusiast" websites gave awful advice IMO. I essentially wanted something with the tactile feel of a good pencil, but with the permanence of ink. Finally I stumbled across fine line markers at an arts supply store (I like the prismacolor ones but I'm sure there are others). They come in various widths (some as thin as a thin mechanical pencil), and they don't smudge, bleed, or need to be refilled. They have a great tactile feel and an extremely sharp, crisp line. I'll never understand why pen forums never seem to recommend them.