I dont think I have ever been able to write the tenth stroke of 發 without at least four or five attempts. Is it just me?

I hear a lot of problem reports on this stroke, but I can never figure out exactly what's wrong. Every way I try to write it, it's fine. Can you describe more how you're trying to write it, or send me a screenshot of an about-to-be-rejected squig that should have been fine?

http://www.skritter.com/scratchpad?words=%E7%99%BC

I have no problem writing that particular stroke on my ancient Wacom. I have more trouble with the sixth stroke (the start of the 弓).

Please see this youtube video for example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b91yKkMOzwg

It demonstrates two issues, firstly the drawing of the 10th stroke not working properly, it only took me 3 times this time which is a good day (: I think the second attempt looked fairly reasonable yes?

The second issue is the cursor always disapears on me when I move the cursor over the buttons on the bottom it makes it very very hard to click on them sometimes!

I'd guess the reason the third stroke succeeds, is that you go up at the start, rather than down. Angle up instead of down each time, and I bet you'll never miss it...

(Actually, what I said isn't really consistent with what Nick's said about how it works, but try it anyway. Perhaps the points you hit will become more natural this way. I've just angled down a few times and missed it for the first time ever).

Looking again at the video, you might want to give it a bit of a tick at the end too.

Brilliant! Thats it! If I exaggerate the upward direction of first component the tenth stroke it works every time! Thanks.

I'll work on it next time. I'm not sure if the upward angling is helping vs. just making a sharper turning point on those, which is usually the problem.

Wow, thats a great tip! As long as I draw everything in straight lines with 90 degree turns or more, it recognises everything!

I have had the identical problem with this stroke and was eventually able to correct with making sure it started with an upward angle.

董雅各 says
"Wow, thats a great tip! As long as I draw everything in straight lines with 90 degree turns or more, it recognises everything!"

Hmm that's a bummer if that's really true (I'm afraid to try it). I'm making a conscious effort to improve my character rendering and pushing out sticks would not hack it ..

Straight lines aren't necessary, but making sharper turns really will help (not necessarily 90 degrees, but tight). The way I mean it is usually in keeping with the calligraphic stylings of the strokes, too. When there is a gradual curve in the Skritter stroke, you can curve it. When there's an actual bend, though, a too-weak corner is hard to recognize.