There is typically a dichotomy between speed and neatness in writing by hand. The faster you write, the harder it becomes to maintain defined letterforms and we can only write so fast before it starts turning illegible. After all, speed and neatness are at odds with each other and require different skills and focus but does it mean we can’t be fast or efficient while maintaining neater writing?
Of course, WE CAN. Although it is a little harder as it wants us to strive for a balance between the two things that are slightly opposing in nature, it is not impossible with the right practice, technique and maybe the right tools. It is easier for our brains to go all in to write “only quickly” without enough control over the neatness, instead of “quickly and good enough” in conditions where slowing down is not an option. For example, jotting down some quick notes during meetings or lectures which are just way too fast to note down what is going on so it is relatively easy for our minds to hone in and focus on the speed aspect and completely let go of the neatness in such extreme conditions.
While striking a balance between these two can be challenging,
It’s essential to note that while there is a natural tension, it’s possible to achieve a happy balance between the two and this post will help you understand how neatness and speed go hand in hand so you can get your fast handwriting in a better position with legibility and neatness.
The thing is writing quickly and neatly is a survival skill for some people as what they write matters in the profession they are in. It requires them to write fast enough to be efficient and good enough to make sense and be legible so it needs to be improved.
Not everyone wants to write “that fast”. Some just want to be efficient with their writing because they might be required to write pretty much throughout the day so a quick pace will ensure it’s getting done efficiently.
Not everyone wants to write “that fast”. By that, I mean writing in quick-paced classrooms or meetings is probably the toughest where they will miss out on stuff to write if they don’t write at the required pace as being constantly bombarded with further things to write. Some just want to be efficient with their handwriting and don’t want to spend too much time writing day-to-day stuff. They might be required to write a lot so maintaining a quick pace will get it done efficiently. The point is some have more time to breathe than others. So everyone going to define “fast” differently based on their current state and their aim.
“Why do I want to write neatly yet fast?”
“Where do I stand?”
How to improve
“Where do I even begin?”
Do you want to keep writing slowly until you’re perfect and suddenly you’ll be the fastest ever?
So are way too slow when writing by hand. Depends on your current state.
Should I practice slowly or fast to be neat and fast?
This depends on person. Lot of people can write really good but not so consistent when writing fast. Other have to improve their slow writing and fundamentals.
Is “time constraint” the only thing that leads to illegible or bad handwriting?
Not not at all. It’s about how capable you are and how good are your fundamentals. If you suck at even normal handwriting, you better be worried for the readers when you write fast.
The letters are nice and complete, consistent in size and spacing when slowing down. It can look decent even when we write normally and intentionally not take our take. However, once we pick up the speed all sorts of things start to get wrong which isn’t surprising as they get less time to care for it.
Decent handwriting for the speed. looks decent for the speed.
I also came across people who naturally tend to write fast out of habit without anything forcing them to do so. They are just not patient enough.
Note-taking, journaling, and brainstorming ideas are some activities where being able to write neatly and quickly remains a valuable skill.
So is there any way to write fast in better handwriting and be happy with it?
It is good to know that one can manage to write fast and perfectly legible and kind of neater if you want to, with some quick fixes and, of course, plenty of right practice. It can never be perfect like a font or even the second best to it when writing fast but it can be much better than what you might have now.
Finding a happy balance between neatness and speed is easier to accomplish.
Rapidity has always been an important component of “everyday handwriting” and its uses. Still, where we want to be, it will be a priority for us. The emphasis then is on less beauty and more on functionality.
Adorable pictures of the writings we see are mostly written taking much more time where the main focus is to write nicely and neatly. We are talking about the most “utilitarian” handwriting here. This is for the everyday hand you use to communicate with other people or yourself.
Handwriting is not meant to be font-like simply because it’s what we write by hand.
Calligraphy is an art, and art is done precisely. It has its charm where we want to look as “good” as possible irrespective of how long it takes. Writing on a card or for a specific occasion is a different story.
Does cursive work in your favour?
It might seem counterintuitive but because letters are connected, it doesn’t mean cursive i
Learning cursive was mandatory back then but if you were not made to learn it or escaped it.
Let’s clear misconceptions that can set back what you want to achieve with your handwriting. We all know cursive is about joining the letters so you don’t have to lift the pen very frequently, but does it make it any faster which is our goal here, than not joining the letters?
Curisive may or may not be fast but it is meant to be easier to your hand.
Modern cursive that is more upright and rounder surely is faster to produce than some sort of elongated traditional script.
Reading cursive is a developed skill but not a difficult one.
If cursive is fast for some random person, does it mean it will be fast for you as well? Of course, not!
We won’t dive into the penmanship literature to know the history of cursive and why it was developed and still exists. The standard of penmanship has dropped drastically today so even if cursive was or was not developed as a method to “write quickly” while doing a better job with looks and aesthetics then, do people have that training and ability to produce it now?
Cursive is not the only way to write faster. Cursive is not fast, nor is print. What you are more experienced in makes one faster than the other in real-life scenarios.
The point is it depends on what you particularly excel in. It’s easier to write faster in the particular style you’re proficient in as that will be neater if not the neatest when you are required to put something down very fast.
If you know cursive, you already have the answer if it is or isn’t faster than your print. The easier it would be to get to your goal with a thing you are already better at.
There could be reasons to go with either print or cursive even if it may be a little slow like you like to write it that way, you like how it looks or it is better for your hand so you might want to improve it to be written with rapidity in this case.
Of course, fancier or elaborated styles of cursive would require more time as you need to go through a process to produce their letters than simpler versions of cursive even if there is an infrequent lifting of the pen and belief that it increases writing speed.
For those who don’t know cursive, improve what you have right now (your print) and make it work for you. It should not matter whether you do or do not write in cursive if your ultimate goal is to write neat and fast unless you are interested in learning cursive.
Learning cursive from scratch to the point that you are able to produce it neatly with speed could be a lengthy process and does not guarantee fulfilling your goal and what you want as soon as you learn it. It’s more of a process where you make progress than achieving all in at once. Changing your primary style of writing altogether is not very convenient at this point.
People who never knew cursive have a great hold of their particular style making them write better competing against time even if it’s not joint. So it’s more of what you’re good at.
Writing smaller in order to write faster
Writing small technically seems you’re doing less work but it will not help that much. The same hand movements are to be made to form a slightly larger or smaller letter and beyond a certain point, writing small makes it hard to see and judge the letters so writing smaller in size is not the most ideal way to write faster.
Why go blank?
Get the practice paper for practising. Kofi link for the blank template from BFH https://ko-fi.com/s/3b187169d0
Broadly, there are two kinds of paper. Blank paper and paper with some guide for handwriting (ruled or lined/ruled, dot grid, square grid, etc).
You are instantly at an advantage when writing on a paper other than blank under rigorous conditions. Blank paper requires one to be more conscious to keep writing straight, so if it is possible to use. With ruled paper we can focus on actual writing between other things like line margin, unless you are required to write on blank papers and or special papers with no such guide provided on it.
When writing fast, it would be great to have any external help. Lined paper not only makes you write straight but also more consistent in terms of the height of the letters as you’re writing between two parallel lines. Even calligraphers who work slowly to make perfect strokes have the necessary guides for the size and angles of the letters.
Dot-grid paper (an apparent tiny dot after every centimeter instead of an actual line) that we see mostly in journals does help in some way as it has enough of a guide.
However, ruled papers are best for our purpose. They have complete guiding lines to make one write more consistent. They keep things clear unlike on paper with other lines the writing gets chaotic.
Develop your style and keep it
Does your handwriting change all the time? Sometimes it is better, other times it is not. This is because you are not determined to one particular style so it gets influenced by different things like the purpose of writing, your mood or the instruments you use.
When you learn a style that becomes your second nature and comes naturally, it’s hard to change when writing for a longer time or under rigorous conditions.
Ever noticed that some people write pretty fast yet it blends so well? I call it “mature handwriting”. The letters and words go so well irrespective of their speed. This is where fast handwriting still retains the aesthetics. It is the style they own, unique to them which they’ve developed over time.
For me, unless I need to write for any special purpose (cursive only or font-like print), I write my fastest and best when I mix joined and non-joined letters. I find the mixture of cursive and print works the best for me. I join certain letters as in cursive (without lifting the pen). However, if I know I have to stretch quite a lot to join the next letter of the word (of the sentence, of the passage, and of the topic;) I skip it by lifting the pen and immediately moving to the next letter. Over time, it is now all spontaneous.
If you do the same thing, there is nothing wrong with it. If it works, it works.
Posture and paper position
When kept at a certain distance you have a great vision of the overall page. Being able to see how you have been so far tells you how to write moving forward maintaining consistency throughout the page.
Similarly, the common habit of slouching while writing again not only brings you closer to the paper but restricts the help from your arm to write more effortlessly and longer, preventing obvious stress on the neck and back it gives by doing so.
The more you get close to your paper, your eyes focus more on just a particular word you’re writing at that instance; increasing eye movement and limiting speed.
You know pretty well how to sit in a good posture or a quick search like “how to sit properly when writing” can lead you to a video on it. The only thing is that you don’t do so or automatically start leaning forward out of the habit. This needs to be changed if you want to write effortlessly for a longer time.
How to practice…
How can you put it together so it looks good when writing fast? is the question you want to ask yourself.
A pen won’t do it all, however, some definitely help. Start by picking a pen that suits you and what you are doing. They have already categorized pens based on your intended use, for example, pens for left-handers in which the ink dries out faster to prevent smudging so it helps in some way to make your writing neater.
Your expectations will determine how much effort you will need to put into it.
“I would settle for easy legibility” > “I want my fast handwriting still retaining the aesthetics” in terms of what is easier to achieve.
Although you are not expected to be outstanding when writing fast, scribbling is unacceptable, especially if somebody else were to read it. Making your fast handwriting legible, without a doubt, is the most important thing and should be your priority when working towards it.
Neater and nicer-looking handwriting may or may not be legible if the letter formation is weird from people’s ability to read and understand them.
You are only required to be better with letter formation and form accurate letters when you write fast to be legible. You can know by asking others what letters are unreadable or ambiguous and those should be the ones that you would have to work on first. For example, “v” should be pointy enough at the bottom so it does not look like “u” or “r” can turn into “n” if you stretch it further.
Little things such as crossing your “t” so it is not lowercase “L” or doting your “i” so it is not again lowercase “l” or kind of “e” can boost the legibility.
Making the ascenders and descenders appropriate in size is crucial for more distinguished letters. Very little or no difference or even very much difference in the size of ascenders/descenders to the size of your primary letters could overall hinder the legibility.
Learning to improve handwriting while keeping rapidity can be a little challenging because it is difficult to practice “effectively” for the same and you don’t get to practice the exact thing you aimed for. This is because there are two things to manage at the same time.
Most people can write well enough when they slow down or even at normal speed, but the scenario changes once they speed up.
Start by writing each letter quickly. Repeat the same letter over and over again in speed. See if it looks how it’s supposed to. Legible? Clear? You must be comfortable forming the letters accurately with equal consistency but greater speed.
If you feel incredibly sloppy for the amount of time you allow yourself to write, improving letter formation will make the biggest difference. Print a chart of the alphabet similar to your handwriting to keep beside you whenever writing to see if your letterforms are accurate enough. This is to remind you how the fundamental shapes of the letter look.
“I write a lot, I’ve practiced a lot but it doesn’t seem to improve”
Being mindful
How to incorporate mindfulness towards improving one’s handwriting?
Focusing on the letter you’re writing at the moment at first.
Timed practice is the most effective method for improving the “writing neatly with speed” thing as it is quite rigorous compared to practising normally. For this, you will need to get handwriting worksheets for tracing that resemble “everyday handwriting”. This is very crucial because elaborated styles work against efficiency.
According to the amount of the contents in the sheet to trace, decide an efficient time limit to complete it. The guidance from the sheet will help you drastically to construct more accurate letters that are consistent in size and space them evenly. Tracing anywhere between 20-30 words with proper letterforms is great to start with. Remember, the goal is not to trace as it is but to find a happy balance between neatness and speed.
References
Welltrainedmind.com forum: https://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/320065-cursive-and-print-speeds-with-poll-hopefully/
r/Handwriting: https://www.reddit.com/r/Handwriting/