Does cursive script have any order logic? I think most people know the basic rules of character writing, like from top to bottom, left to right, etc., but it seems that the rules don't work at all when it comes to cursive writing.

Question: Does cursive have any order logic, even if its own? What are they?
If you're not too concerned about aesthetics, and more about functional cursive balancing your own writing speed and other people's reading comprehension, just build upon regular script stroke orders.


「鬱」, written in 7 strokes;「飛」, written in 3 strokes;「龜」, written in 2 strokes.

You have to re-order some regular script stroke orders, focusing on the following:

Abbreviate dense part of characters with a generic scribble which can capture the outline. The detail and exact shape of highly dense portions of characters does not impede reading comprehension.
Think carefully about where the next part of the character starts, and try to reorder the strokes to minimise pen movement.

I suggest using a semi-cursive to cursive style rather than a fully cursive style, like the example of「龜」above. If other people and standard handwriting recognition programs can read your writing, then you're doing something right.


Semi-cursive works okay for Pleco handwriting (「鬱」and「飛」). Full cursive does not (「龜」), but Apple's handwriting recognition does a fairly good job.