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I need help fact-checking my a part in the Novel I am writing. I want to know how someone who writes Italics would hold their pen, is it any different from someone who writes with a Straight Handwriting? I conjecture that someone who writes in a Straight Handwriting will have the nib pointing -45 to -20 degrees from their body whereas an Italics writer would hold it -15 to +25 degrees. What this means is that a Normal writer's nib will be more worn on the left side than the right, and vice-versa in an Italics writer. Please send in a picture (if possible) of how you would hold your nib if you are writing in italics, and mention whether you usually write in a straight, or in italics. Everyone who submits a response will be mentioned in the Acknowledgements at the beginning of my novel. It's a thriller, and this is the part where the detective begins to suspect things she would have never had otherwise... Any help and advice will be deeply appreciated. I place a very high price on the factual accuracy of a novel.

Hello everyone, I adore the Omas 360 fountain pen and have two of them, the magnum and the smaller version. I have however noticed a what (for me) is a flaw with my magnum. The Nib appears to be pitched at an upwards angle relative to the line of the barrel, meaning the nib is off centre when I hold it to write, whereas with the smaller version is straighter. It's a bit of goldilocks situation for me. The central nib is more natural for my writing, while the bigger pen feels more comfortable in my hand for longer periods of writing. Has anyone else noticed this Omas 360s? Sorry I can't show any pictures, my computer doesn't want to upload for them!

This problem happens on my Faber Castell Loom and I just bought a pilot metropolitan so now I have something to compare it to. I first want to mention a problem I had months ago but seems to have worked itself out, just in case it's relevant. That would be while writing a couple of pages, the ink would stop flowing and I'd have to lower the piston to get it to write again. That problem appears to have gone away after a couple of months. On to my current (small) issue. If I leave the pen uncapped for about 30 seconds to a minute, it generally doesn't write on the first stroke. Once it starts writing it writes fine. This same problem occurs when moving from a higher angle to a lower angle of writing. Sometimes I'll re-position my hand at a lower angle and it will skip a line or two. I bought a Pilot Metropolitan yesterday and for a third of the price of the Loom.... it writes better. Smoother nib and no hard starts if left uncapped for less than a minute. Now I wouldn't call the Loom's nib scratchy but it does have more feedback and needs more pressure to write well. Below is a video of what happens when I adjust the angle. There are also a few pictures that took way to long to ghetto-rig together but gives a better picture of the nib point. If the ink looks a bit weird it's because it has started to dry as the pictures took some time.

Background: Right handed. Been using fountain pens on and off for a couple of years. Only recently gotten more serious about pens, cursive writing, nib types etc. My goal is to improve my cursive handwriting, and eventually to move on to calligraphy and advanced scripts. So I recently got some flexible nibs, played around with line variation, and came upon an article that says the "sweet spot" is when the pen is under the lining of writing, and the nib is perpendicular to it. This makes a bit of sense to me, so I tried it out (quite weird to say the least!). My original way of writing is a kind of side writing. One thing I did notice upon switching to underwriting at 90 degrees is that pens write wetter and line variation much more achievable (esp for nibs previously thought to be nails).' So I just want to throw this out to the community of much more experienced writers. Which is the more "correct" way to position the nib with regard to the direction of writing? Right now I find the need to rotate my page awkward and underwriting somewhat fatiguing to the wrist. Any tips of advice? The bottom line is that I want to get started with the correct writing posture, that will serve me well if I move onto dip pens and calligraphy. My original way of holding pen: New, correct?? way of holding pen: