I am new to the site although not new to RTK. I am going back to earlier stories and I find that what needs consolidating most is the position of primitives in the Kanji.
I am therefore tempted to post notes that emphasise the position of primitives. These are not new stories in themselves. See obey 129 as an example.
I am not sure whether the community would find this kind of post as cluttering the story database. I can imagine with time the number of stories will grow and there will be a need to sort information.
Please advise...
Thanks to fuaburisu for this wonderful achievement and to everyone for sharing experience ad stories

Well, if its going to be information that helps us remember how to draw the kanji more accurately, I can't see anyone complaining, mate.

Although perhaps you could incorporate postional information into a story of some kind,

like, maybe: You've got to OBEY that huge HEAD on the RIGHT side of the STREAM...

I suppose in a perfect world there would be seperate sections for notes, hints, and stories ... but information like "in none of the kanji of RTK1 is head in the left position of the kanji" is very useful and one of the things I think Heisig didn't talk about enough (that perfect world thing again). Although for obey I would say your mention of where stream is located is unneccessary because as you say head is always on the right and for instruction, 'say' is very nearly always on the left, so much so that's it's easier to just learn the exceptions for it. Stream is pretty much all over the place so when it's next to one of these always radicals, it's not even worth thinking about. I would have liked a list of rules like these for help in planning out stories.

One of the exceptions I noticed is this where it'd be part of another primative anyway. Like these guys which I can't even find in heisig:
憺擔澹檐蟾簷. If you learn that one primative though, picking up these oddities would be a cinch. A testament to Heisig's system.

So in short I say notes are useful and welcome aboard.

scottamus Wrote:Although for obey I would say your mention of where stream is located is unneccessary because as you say head is always on the right and for instruction, 'say' is very nearly always on the left, so much so that's it's easier to just learn the exceptions for it. Stream is pretty much all over the place so when it's next to one of these always radicals, it's not even worth thinking about. I would have liked a list of rules like these for help in planning out stories.

A list of rules of this sort would be excellent. You could make quite comprehensive rules, but they might be difficult to remember. For example, I was thinking about 言:

1. In "2-column" kanji:
i) 言 is on the LEFT,
ii) unless it is enclosed, or has an element above it.
Examples of (ii): 這 謄 (common), 鞫 譱 (uncommon)
Exception: 信 (because ninben never takes the extreme right position)

2. In "3-column" kanji:
言 is in the MIDDLE
Exception: 誑 (uncommon)
Examples: 獄 儲

Is something like this too complicated to be much use? Generally the rules can be kept simpler if you restrict the range of kanji to which they apply. E.g. RTK1/2, or kanji designated "common (I)" in EDICT. This restriction would get rid of the exception in rule 2 above.

I can post some more if anyone is interested. Note, these need "fact-checking", they aren't authoritative. There could be something I've missed that demolishes the whole thing!

Don't forget about 警 and 誓!

I think the notes would be most helpful on the primitives that are the most stable. Once these are established, then add in notes for the next most stable primitives and their exceptions, until you are left with only primitives that just go wherever they fit. For example, 這 is a needless exception to learn, since something always goes on the road. You wouldn't even think about writing 言 to the left of 辶 (closest I could get to how the road primitive is normally written). Also, as you pointed out, 人 always appears on the left, so you would not even think to put 言 on its left.

I think the idea for these guidelines are good, but let's do it as efficiently as possible, leaving as few exceptions to learn as possible. I find that these rules, when they apply, are more helpful in learning the writing of kanji than having to worry about the position of elements in every story (of course there are always exceptions, but exceptions are easy when there are only a few). I sometimes had trouble with where certain elements like "head" would go. When Heisig says "Some primitive elements ALWAYS have the same position in a kanji. We saw this earlier in the case of the primitive meaning head..." I didn't notice it at all. I would sometimes put head on the left, but after I knew the rule, that was one less thing to worry about...

So, in my mind, it makes sense to start with enclosures (very briefly, but they do have quite a high priority in determining the writing of kanji after all), then move to "person", "fingers", "head", "taskmaster", etc. and gradually get to the ones that start having exceptions. Then near the end, the remaining primitives will mostly not need rules at all, if they are governed by the position of the other elements.