Hi guys,
I was thinking about my grip on my pen, and I realised that I can do two different grips, so I was wondering, which one is more correct?

Or this one

The second grip works better, in my judgment — or would work better, if you could relax that thumb a bit. Imagine holding a very seriously over-ripe mango with your thumb and fingers cradled around it, and wishing NOT to squish the mango.

Thanks for the reply. I tend to write much neater and have better control with the first grip, and the pen is quite thin (Cross Century II) so it isn't the easiest pen to use that grip with. Should I aim for comfort or neatness?

You'll never (or only with great hardship) sustain neatness without comfort, so aim for comfort — and get a thicker pen! The pen that suits Mr. Cross's hand may not suit yours — myself, when I try to write with a Cross, I feel as if I had to write with a toothpick!
If you can't (won't) get a thicker pen, see if you or some pen-customizing master can do something to "bulk up" the shaft of the Cross where your fingers hold it — you might consider those slip-on rubber "pencil-grip" things sold in office-supply stores.

Greetings:
The second position to me looks (almost) the easier one to write with to me. Why?
1. The two fingers and thumb should be a straight as possible, with a slight bend in the second finger, that is, the one that supports the pen. The second finger nail should just touch the paper, or slightly above it depending on the writing style and speed.
2. The tip of the index finger should be approximately 3/4 to one inch from the tip of the nib. Looking from above the pen should be angled slightly away from the shoulder, meaning a bird's eye view.
3. The pen should be supported by the second finger (The one under the pen), and gripped by the thumb.
4. The fingers and thumb should feel completely relaxed, with little tension on the pen. Raising the hand from the paper the pen should feel balanced, and light in the hand.
5. The writer should be able to freely 'tap' the pen with the index finger at any time, without losing grip on the pen, or without the pen falling from the hand. This also is a worthwhile exercise to perform (3 or 4 times while pausing) while writing long documents. If you cannot tap without losing hold of the pen the pen is not gripped properly, or the pen is badly out of balance.
6. The writing tablet or page should be in line with the right shoulder, and not center to the body. Meaning the hand is straight from the shoulder to the hand to the center of the paper, and not aligned with the center of the body.

Hope this somehow helps. Everyone is different, but this a very good place to start.
Some cannot write with out moving the fingers in and out, this greatly tires the fingers, and hand so practice with some movement in the forearm. Writing should be very close to being effortless. Style wise, everyone develops their own, no matter if the grips are the exactly same. Can't think of anything else.
Hawk

Thanks for the replys. Every time I use a thicker pen, like the Bic multi-tip, I squeeze the pen really hard, whereas the Cross, is actually very comfortable, and I don't squeeze. I was going to try a Watermen Hemisphere, how much thicker is it than my Cross?

EDIT: here is a pic of my multi-pen (£5!):

Another pic:

Pen size?
Actually it shouldn't matter much how skinny or fat the pen is or isn't.
Writers of the past wrote quite very well will using a feather as a pen.

The pen is not being gripped tightly so size shouldn't be noticed, the pen is simply guided by the hand, in fact one can write with fairly well with only two fingers, not as well as three but its possible (The difference tells how important that index finger is to guiding the pens direction).

Overly large pens give me more of a problem than narrower ones, I believe the reason for this is that the fingers would like to naturally 'pinch' closed. (However if your own fingers seem to like an more open position than go for a larger pen, however it is far easier to maintain a pinched position than an open one, test your own)

Somewhere I read that the finger tips of all the active fingers (Writing finger and thumb) should be in contact, much like a wooden pencil is) this cannot occur with an oversize pen. Some newer designs have a small triangular section for a grip (Lamy Safari's, etc) where the tips do touch, and the nib angle is fixed to the grip, I find this comfortable, where I have heard that others don't, so select whatever feels 'right' in your own hand. For me it is not the diameter of the grip, but if the surface is slippery. (Some of my plastic dip pins are wrapped with cotton string, where the wooden ones or cork covered are not, if your hands perspire or are oily look for a pen with a shaped, or rubberized grip). If your fingers are oily, and the pen grip is smooth or slick, AND the pen is overly heavy, then you have a problem.

Not not only is the grip of concern, but also the horizontal position of the paper important to writing skills. It is vital that the surface of the paper have a downward slant. This tilted or slopped writing surface does two things; it eliminates perspective distortion by looking directly at the plane of the paper, but more important is that the hand and arm are moving slightly down hill (Gravity helps). Meaning the weight of your arm is more free than if it were flat on the paper. A slight movement of the almost straight fingers, along with the forearm movement guides the pen with little pressure from the grip of the fingers. Hard to describe, but try it and you shall see pen size matters very little, what is more important are the things that I have described in this message and my first. My Cross is one of my very favorite writing pen.
Hawk

Re:

> Not not only is the grip of concern, but also the horizontal position of the paper important to
> writing skills. It is vital that the surface of the paper have a downward slant. This tilted or
> slopped writing surface does two things; it eliminates perspective distortion by looking directly > at the plane of the paper, but more important is that the hand and arm are moving slightly
> down hill (Gravity helps).

Actually, a sloped writing-surface does a third thing too: it makes handwriting instructions like "start this letter/stroke at the top" actually make sense to kids learning to write (because they don't somehow have to figure out all-by-themselves that "top" in the context of handwriting must mean "farthest away from the writer on the horizontal desk") — with a sloping desk, you can *see* what Teacher means by "the top" of the writing-surface!
Without a sloping desk (writing on just a horizontal surface), any five- or six-year-old who understands the English language naturally assumes that "starting at the top" means "starting anywhere on the tabletop" ... by the time the kids eventually do (possibly) figure out otherwise (days or weeks or months or even YEARS later) they have built habits of starting-just-anyplace because, after all, the "top" of a flat desk or table obviously means any place on the upper surface of the table, doesn't it? ...

Re pen size — I agree that it doesn't matter to everybody (someone pointed out that quills have a very thin shaft but people have written excellently with them), but to me and other not-naturally-skilled writers (especially as we get tired) pen-size can make a real difference indeed. If I had lived in the Middle Ages and worked in a monastic (well, "nun-astic") scriptorium, you probably could have picked me out very easily as the only scribe who had put some moldy bread or whatever around the quill-shaft to try to "bulk it up" a bit.

Thanks again for the replies. I do think the pen could be a bit small in the future, but for now it is OK. It could be a bit thicker, but such a small amount that I won't be able to find a pen as such (like not noticable amount). So I am extremely happy with the size of my pen, and I might consider a Waterman Hemisphere in the future. I tried the new grip, and it works very well, is it OK to keep your fingers curved, or should the be stright like in the second pic? When I say curved, I mean the natural way.
Thanks!

Hello again, sure it is perfectly fine to curve your fingers if that feels comfortable, however if it causes the fingers to cramp or become tired soon, switch to a grip that doesn't. The pen should not be pinched, but float in the hand.

For some its the thumb that mainly moves the pen, others its the wrist, and forearm. Practice to find what suits you, and your handwriting style will develop along the way.

Another clear sign that the grip is poor is that the writing starts off looking just fine, however after a few lines the quality of that handwriting falls off quickly.

For me writing has a rhythm, its kinda, up, down, up, down with slight pauses along the way, and everyone must find their very own rhythm. Try writing with some light music in the background.
Hawk