Slant—the emotional gauge

Our next adventure will take us to the most important element of personality: how we emotionally respond to stimuli. Before I begin I must tell you that this was the thing that drew me into a serious study of this subject. Does handwriting reveal everything about a person? Certainly not. No evaluation can do that. Does it offer evidence about the internal emotional responses of a writer? Most definitely. To learn about that we will consider where it shows, that is, in the slant of the writing. For our purpose here we will look at the three basic directions it goes. Of course, all three may even appear in the same handwriting producing several slants.

To review: the natural direction of the flow of writing on a line is forward toward the right side of the page, which represents the future, the unknown, other people. It is moving away from self. So, we can surmise that the natural slant of writing also would logically be heading rightward. But if we look at writing strokes going upward from the baseline we may see that the direction is not forward at all. Strokes might go up vertically so that the writing appears upright. (Using a protractor the upright position would be 90 degrees. This will be easier to see in future handwriting samples. We can't get too technical about measurements here. Just try to follow the basics of leftward, upright and rightward.) Let's take them one by one.

Pure objectivity in response would imply no pull of emotion going either backward or forward. This is the interpretation of an upright writing. Indeed, vertical writers are head-before-heart people. I have only seen a few purely upright samples. (Dr. Spock of Star Trek, who was never emotionally swayed, would have scored a perfect 10 for logic and zip for emotional response.) Assuming the baseline is quite even and that letter size is not erratic, the vertical writer can be controlled, poised, cool, and unbiased. Even though they may feel strongly they can restrain their expression and maintain an objective position. Stay tuned—all the evidence isn't in yet. (We need to look at writing pressure.) They may have explosive moments too since it takes a lot of energy to hold back stored feelings and sometimes the cork pops.

As writing bends even slightly to the right, emotions begin to exert some influence. (Copybook has a slightly rightward slant so that's the slant we were taught.) As it goes more rightward the heart rules more and more and objectivity takes second place. When it is goes to the extreme the writer is being influenced by strong internal responses. The farther to the right the writing slants the more subjective the person is. Without strong controls (such as perhaps, dignity, caution, repression) to hold back expression, the deep right-slanter also will likely show emotions. But if there are many controls in place the feelings are reined in so you might not see such expression. We learn early in life that expressing everything we feel may not be acceptable. So, often we learn to squelch them. "Big boys don't cry, Son."

At the other end of the continuum is the left slanted writer. The writing bends backward—slightly to extremely. Following the line of reasoning that going to the left implies self-involvement and being pulled to the past, it signifies a self-oriented frame of reference. (Note I did not say selfish.)

Here is how it goes: left-slanters run everything they experience through a filter. They are internally on the alert and asking, though not consciously, 'How does this affect me?' Pay attention how they express themselves. They may say, "Well, in my experience…" and then go on to relate how that connects to what is being discussed."It seems to me…" and then tie themselves into how it personally relates. It might be that you are talking about an illness you had. The left-slanter may self-reference it. (It beats me how a left-slanter man can personally relate to the things peculiar to women, but I have heard that many times. It may sound like a right-slanter does this too, but that may be more to do with sympathy rather than making it part of own their experience. They are feeling for you, which is outer-directed.)

Extreme left-slanters are hard to know. They do not share themselves easily; they absolutely have to build trust first. They are emotionally guarded and withdrawn. Now, here is what is so intriguing about some. They might appear to be very outgoing and friendly because they have learned how to be or they are in a situation where they are not feeling vulnerable. That's the key. So in a work situation they might seem outgoing.

The most common comment I hear about handwriting is, "My writing changes." That can certainly be true. If you change your writing will reflect that. (It will get smaller than usual if you are concentrating hard; or it may get looser when you are relaxed or are writing faster.) Your slant may vary because of mood, or even change dramatically and permanently because of trauma. The hand used for writing has nothing to do with slant, by the way.

The emotional foundation, like size of writing, is a global indicator, which affects all the other personality traits. We cannot say how much any writer will outwardly express feeling until all the traits have been weighed and evaluated as a whole. So, emotional responsiveness tells what is happening inside; emotional expressiveness tells what is happening outside. We must keep that important distinction in mind.