Struggling With Cursive Lowercase "r"

[Nonstickron]

After analyzing some of my writing, I've decided that in practice my lowercase r is often indistinguishable from a lowercase n, even when I slow down. I also struggle with transitioning to r from b or o, since the tails are up higher. I think perhaps I should learn a different style r altogether.

 

I'm also struggling with a way to easily post photos to this forum straight from my phone. Argh.

Edited July 18, 2014 by Nonstickron

[inn3rs3lf]

I have the exact same problem. I tend to 'panic' when I get to the r and it ends up being gibberish.

[BBU]

I had a similar issue for a while.

 

In my case, lowercase Rs looked too much like Batman's cowl (haha, honestly) instead of having a smooth curve at the top-right, and my N also had a sharp corner on the upper-right of the letter because of how I was accustomed to doing my strokes. Another bad habit from childhood was that I removed the extra loop leading to the top-left shoulder of lowercase Ms and Ns so that it would more closely resemble their printed versions with a sharp drop. I now realize that this makes the area around these letters look cramped and also makes it harder to distinguish lowercase Rs from Ns at a glance.

 

I would sum up my tips like this:

 

-keep the top-right corner of each letter distinctive from the other letter (eg. the top-right corner of the lowercase R is lower than the top-left, while for Ns it's at the same height throughout)

-do not omit the curve at the beginning of lowercase Ms and Ns, and write spaciously enough for it to be visible

 

You may also find success with adding a full loop to the top-left corner of the lowercase R, but that looks really cheesy to me. Alternatively, you can try writing the letter as in the Palmer Method. It looks like a printed lowercase R but attaches to the adjacent letters. I think E. Mills' Modern Business Penmanship does a fine job of showing how to make these letters look different from each other. For starters, it shows the lowercase R being much narrower than the N.

[lynxcat]

i have trouble getting my "r" sufficiently different from "v". my cursive is italic-inspired, and the upstroke of my "r" sometimes splits too far from the stem. i've been tempted to elaborate on it more, even if it's not strictly italic, and go to the three- or four-stroke "r" as seen in Spencerian and some related styles.