Does your pen size matter?


Fountain pens, both modern and vintage, are made in a assortment of sizes. Slender and long, fat and short, every combination you can think of. Why is this? After all, a standard pencil is, what, 6mm diameter and approx 170mm long. Most of us have used pencils to either write or draw or doodle, and many of us still do. Outside of lead holders or mechanical pencils though there doesn't seem to be any clamour for pencils in the variety of sizes that are either accepted or demanded of fountain pens.

So, what is it about the fountain pen that distinguishes it from a standard pencil with regards to the general fit to hand?



For me, short pens (barrel length of 100mm or less) run the risk of not sitting on the thumb-forefinger web and dropping into the palm of the hand. However, a lot of pens fall into a relatively narrow range of lengths that I would consider short, and often these pens are unbalanced when posted, with the weight of the cap subtly lifting the nib from the page.

Then there is girth. My fattest pen (custom made) is about 15mm diameter at the section. The thinnest (a Waterman 52 currently) is around 8mm diameter on the section. Lots of pens fall within this range, but does a single millimetre really make that much of a difference?

Here's a (bad) photo that shows the extreme range in my "collection".




In my very limited experience of using any kind of writing tool (pencils, ballpoints, fountain pens, brushes and so on) my observation is that if the tool is held correctly then the girth where the fingers rest is really not that critical (within certain parameters of course, a foot wide section is obviously only going to be suitable for the Hulk!).

Whether this observation can be generalised to the writing community is unclear, because an informal search around the internet reveals a lot of "incorrect" grips out there. However, if an "incorrect" grip allows a person to make a satisfactory mark on the paper, can it be considered "incorrect"? Perhaps that is a question for another time.