It is very difficult for many writers to follow the copybook model taught in school. Structured "penmanship" classes appear to be getting less common these days, depending. Of course, it is a useful discipline to learn by a model to follow because nobody wakes up at age 7 and knows how to write. We need guidance to learn something as complex as writing skills. The trouble has come from school systems imposing the method as the way it must be done. I have heard a lot of war stories from people who experienced being rapped on the knuckles for failing to do it like the chart. Many also tell how they were forced to change from naturally writing left-handed to unnaturally writing right-handed. That could not have been pleasant.
However, when you first learned how to write, left on your own, your natural pattern was formed and became automatic. Writing eventually became something you do without thinking how, much like walking.
It is a habit.
There are roughly four things that happen once you are used to performing the act of writing and develop your own style: (all of them can appear in the same handwriting!)
1. You conform quite closely to the copybook model you learned in the first place. Such writers still will show individual characteristics, even though the writing resembles copybook. There are always deviations from it. For example, such writers tend to remain a conforming people. Seems "nice" and compliant. Maybe so and maybe not as there can be quiet traits of inner defiance, stubbornness, even resentment stewing. Depends what traits show up but overall (seeming to be) comforming is the norm.
2. You revert to printing. Most of us learn to print first. Some start as printers in the early grades of school, then learn cursive and use it and later take up printing again due to the vocation they select or it starts to feel right. When printing is the preferred style the personality seeks clarity, simplicity and likes the way it looks better than the way they write cursive. Printers are usually direct communicators, often do not like small talk about nothingnesses (Unless it's a hot topic for them, like sports.) Listen closely and you may notice that printers talk more about their feelings than they feel their feelings. Rather, they may intellectualize them. Many printers find intimate emotional connections difficult. Block printers fall into the category of middle-zone predominant writers (check the posting on "zones") and are interested in what is happening now. Printers can be creative people. Some writers do print-script, which is a mixture, just as the name suggests. There are many styles of printing so for our purposes here we will not be talking a lot about this style of writing.
3. You can embellish more. Such writers feel that a plain styte is just not quite finished looking or feeling to them. They just have to add more. A flourish, a wavy line, extras. The effect can range from tasteful design, suggesting an appreciation of line, to outrightly garish and ostentacious, which is a play to be noticed—or else. Usually if writers want to be noticed they put themselves 'out there' and show it by writing large, even though it is not embellished.
4. You find ways to strip the writing down. Chief indication is that the writer leaves off approach strokes, that is, the entrance strokes of letters, the lead-ins. An easy example to visualize: the letter t. When started in the upper zone as a straight stroke that descends straight to the baseline, you have a direct stroke, which is an efficient use of time and energy. Mark this as a trait defined as DIRECTNESS. Makes sense, doesn't it? We get the understanding of this as a trait because it deviates from copybook cursive. We learn to make a t with an approach stroke that is retraced: after ascending it then comes down as a retraced stroke. Doing it as a straight line makes it more efficient; it is shorter and easier. The mind unconsciously figured that out; the writer doesn't plan it.
So, when this trait starts showing up in a young person's writing we have the hint of moving toward maturity, if we can call that a destination. (Do we ever arrive?) Surely though, it is thinking maturity. Direct writers, especially if it is a very strong trait, get right into things with no fanfare. They don't tolerate delay very well and have trouble with long-winded stories, especially if forced to listen to them. Ask an indirect person (lots of lead-ins, implying they need warm-up time—the longer the lead-in the more time they need ) "How was your weekend?" and you may get the whole, detailed story. Ask a direct person the same question and you are likely to get, "Great!"
When directness is pronounced (rating say, 8-10 on a scale of 0-10)—and there are few traits to squelch it (like fears) or inhibit it from being expressed out loud (be assured the writer is still thinking it) you have bluntness. Aiding and abetting such a tendency would be strong emotional responsiveness, heavy pressure, (we will talk about these soon) impatience and poor impulse control (the latter is an evaluated tendency.) The writer would be impelled to 'shoot from the hip' unless very reticent.
I don't think I mentioned before that well over 100 basic personality traits come out in handwriting. Plus, dozens of evaluated traits, which are combinations of basic traits. It is like mixing paint: you have two separate colors and then you mix them and get a third color. Example: humor+sarcasm=wit. Wit has a bite to it; the sarcasm tacked onto to humor creates that effect. (Later, you will read my lecture on sarcasm; this use is the only redeeming use of such energy and that is also questionable if it hurts someone. ;))
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