Why You Should Write With a Fountain Pen
I used to write with Onyx brand rollerball pens. Not only was I a total addict but I also had this OCD thing about needing to have a fresh one on hand at all times. I liked to take notes with these pens, writing on eye-ease paper in neat, block letters. In short, I was missing out.
These days we do a lot of our writing with keyboards. Even when I was a student carrying around those God-awful rollerballs, I’d take my notes home at the end of the day and type them up. These days, and especially during the pandemic, I make a lot of my living writing and, for this, I have to use a keyboard because I’m either working in a screenplay format in Final Draft or I’m writing in a Google Doc for a client’s review.
Both of those media are fine, but there’s something about the way the mind moves when the hands hold a writing instrument and a blank notebook. It’s just different from hammering at a keyboard. There’s something viscerally different, something deeply embedded in the brain.
I do all of my brainstorming in notebooks. I have boxes and boxes of them, going back decades. I like to work out ideas on paper in longhand. Maybe some of this is owed to my seven years of formal art school training, or maybe it’s just a universal experience. I can’t say. What I can say is that writing shouldn’t be a chore. The act of writing by hand with a pen should be a pleasure. This is why I like to use fountain pens.
Why did people stop using fountain pens?
A little history first. Fountain pens haven’t been around all that long. They only came into existence in the late 1800s. The first ones were what we now call “eye-dropper” pens, which had to be carefully filled with ink using an eye-dropper and those pens leaked like crazy. Pens with internal bladders were introduced in the very late 1890s and by the late 20th century you had all manner of mechanisms for holding ink: pistons, vacuums, sacks, cartridges, etc.
Fountain pens had a drawback which made ballpoints more practical, which is why they overtook fountain pens in popularity in the 1950s and 1960s. First, fountain pens are more sensitive to changes in air pressure. What this means from a practical standpoint is that if you board an airplane with a loaded fountain pen (of most but not all types) and there’s an air bubble in the ink reservoir that formed at sea level, then when the plane is pressurized, that bubble will expand and force ink out of the nib.
Vacuum-type fountain pens fix this problem, but most others can still be affected, so unless you uncap your pen and hold it vertically for a few minutes before takeoff and until the “ding” goes off in the cabin (the sign that the plane is fully pressurized) you could wind up with a pen that seems fine, but has a ton of ink held back from your trousers only by the cap.
Another reason fountain pens aren’t always the best writing implement is that most fountain pen inks aren’t permanent. You can sign a check with a Bic ballpoint and know the ink can’t be removed easily, but most fountain pen inks fail in this regard.
Noodler’s brand makes several “bulletproof” fountain pen inks that take care of this problem. These inks can’t be removed, even with a laser, so your checks are unlikely to be messed with. Of course, using these also means your pen had better not leak!
Finally, there’s the Space Pen reason: writing with a fountain pen must be done on a table or some other horizontal surface. A pressurized pen like a Space Pen will write upside down, underwater, or in space (duh).
Why would one prefer a fountain pen?
Practically speaking, most of the times when you have to jot down notes, you won’t need a Space Pen. When you need permanent ink, you can get permanent ink for your fountain pen. Fountain pens are still pretty practical.
The first reason to prefer a fountain pen is that they do not use hand-delivered pressure to apply ink to paper the way a ballpoint pen does. This means you don’t need to, and should not press the nib into the paper like you’re using a pencil or a ballpoint. Writing with a fountain pen takes less effort from your hand and you won’t tire of writing as easily as you might otherwise. You can write pages and pages and not get writer’s cramp. It is a revelation.
Fountain pens are also often very comfortable in the hand, and when you find one you really like, it’s not like a disposable pen that might get discontinued or updated in a few years; it’s something you can hang onto for decades. Because you can change out the inks, or indeed the nibs, fountain pens are pens that can keep the attributes you like and swap out the ones you find boring. Tired of black ink? Try purple ink. Or iron gall ink. Or red ink. Or ink with glitter in it. Want a broad nib? You can just buy one and add it to your pen. Want a calligraphic nib? You can get one of those too.
I find that the sheer amount of writing I do by hand has forced me to reckon with my handwriting. These days my block letters of yore are reserved for the outside of mail. I mostly write in longhand (script, for the philistines) and while I’m no calligrapher, it’s much more interesting and fun to do, not to mention impressive to those you choose to write to via snail mail. I used to think my script was awful, but the truth is I was just out of practice.
The more one enjoys an act, the more likely one is to take part in it. I spend more time writing by hand today than I did before using fountain pens. The result of this practice: increased creative output. When I have to type something such a screenplay or something like this, I find I’m much better prepared for the keyboard stage than I would have been otherwise, purely because my mental focus and creative output were so much greater than before.
Aren’t fountain pens expensive?
Yes and no. And no. Entry-level fountain pens sell for around ten to twenty dollars. I owned a litany of Parker Vector fountain pens and I loved them. A couple working examples remain in my collection, though I seldom ink them up. The problem with Parker pens is they use a proprietary cartridge and their inkwell adapter sucks, so if you want to write with other inks, you usually have to look to other makers. Also, the little arrowheads on the cap clips tear up the pocket into which you put them, so they’re rough to carry if you wear a favorite blazer.
After a few years, I wanted to try non-Parker inks and more interesting nibs. I picked up the Conklin “Mark Twain” crescent-filler (so named for its original celebrity endorsement) which is a delight, and cost less than a c-note at the time.
Today I have a small but respectable collection of fountain pens, including a Montblanc, but my favorites are my Pilot 823, Pilot 742, and Conklin All-American. These pens range in price from $300 to just $50, and given that they are all refillable and made to last a lifetime, the investment is actually far less than one would otherwise make in boxes and boxes of ballpoint or rollerball pens.
Since you’re the sort of person reading this, I’ll start with an expensive one.
Pilot 823
This is the most expensive fountain pen I purchased new, and it’s the most dependable. Mine has a medium sized nib with an iridium ball, which writes well, if without variation in line size. It has a conservative design, though its barrel is transparent, allowing one to see how much ink it holds. What I love about it comes down to two things: it has a vacuum filling mechanism, and it has a huge ink reservoir.
A vacuum filler isn’t just fun to use, it’s also very clever. For one thing, vacuum pens can be left unused for long periods without drying out because the filling mechanism cuts off the feed when not in use, so there’s no way for ink to get out when you’re not using it. Secondly, because of this same quality, vacuum pens won’t leak due to air pressure changes in airplanes, provided you don’t take them out during the flight. I always have this pen with me when I fly because it can be left in my bag on an airplane without issues.
The pen costs about $300 all in, and can be purchased in the US with standard nib sizes, though one can get it with a flexible nib from one dealer in Japan. As much as I’d love that version, I wanted the US warranty more, so I got my medium nib version from Goulet Pens here in the USA.
This is considered a more premium pen and comes with a nice presentation box and a bottle of ink. I like it better than a lot of more expensive pens I’ve tried, and its filling mechanism is clever and practical. Also, since it does not have a flexible nib, it’ll always just write when I just need it to. Flexible nibs are fun, but sometimes when you’re trying to write quickly, they can have problems, so having a regular type of nib is actually a blessing.
Pilot 742
This pen looks a lot like the 823, but isn’t an 823. It’s a JDM product, so I had to get it without a warranty but it’s perhaps the best pen for everyone. It takes normal Pilot cartridges, which can be found everywhere. It also accepts Pilot’s largest cartridge converter, a vacuum filler, so one can use it with nearly any ink, and the converter makes it easy to clean when you want to swap inks. A note about the converter: this vacuum filler can’t be closed off like the other one, so it will leak on an airplane like any other normal fountain pen that takes cartridges.
Perhaps its best quality is that it is sold in nearly every kind of Pilot nib size. I picked it up in an “FA” type nib, which is a flexible, gold nib designed for Japanese calligraphy. Its flex gives handwriting a variable character and it is a joy to use.
Note I wrote that it is for Japanese calligraphy, not any kind of European calligraphy. This is an important point. Japanese and Chinese calligraphy use much shorter strokes than any language using a Roman alphabet, so the feed, which is the tube that brings ink to the nib, is going to start to run dry if you attempt complex European calligraphy. When the feed runs dry, you can wind up with something called “railroading” where the nib’s two halves split, but no ink fills the space between them because the feed can’t keep up. Because there’s some ink on each side of the nib, it writes two thin, parallel lines like railroad tracks. It’s not a good look.
Technically I could swap its nib and feed into my 823 because the nib and feed are compatible, but I leave both pens as they are.
Warranty, you know? The 823 was $300!
Conklin All-American
An anniversary gift from my wife, the All-American is a great pen for travel. It accepts the international standard cartridges found everywhere (not like Parker or Pilot pens) and international style converters. I can put Diamine, Mont Blanc, or Monteverde inks in it without an issue because they all make compatible cartridges. It’s a simple, workmanlike pen with a delightful clip, a fat barrel good for big hands, and it’s interesting looking without being loud.
The design dates to the Great Depression, when Conklin (in its original incarnation) wanted to make a cheap pen for the masses, so it has a cool retro look without being over the top. It comes in a lot of colors, and it takes a standard nib size available all over, so one can purchase nibs for it after buying in the event one feels the pen is a little boring.
I take this pen with me to write on airplanes. This is because most international standard cartridges are short and cheap, so I can just pop out the old one when I get on a plane and use a new cartridge once the plane is pressurized. It’s even available with the Conklin “Omniflex” nib, which isn’t as soft as the Pilot FA nib, but gives a little line variation.
Conclusion
Most folks regard writing by hand as a chore, and that’s a shame. Writing with a fountain pen is a joy and it improves one’s handwriting to boot. Additionally, the more you want to write, the more you will write and the more you write, the better you’ll get at writing. So get a fountain pen.
Oh, and no one paid me to write this or to push any brand or seller. These are my honest opinions.