For some of the kanji, I'll have the primitives on the correct side, but their relative sizes in relation to one another is off, or a certain stroke that is angled a little is off...

Should I be worried about that, or is that a handwriting thing?

Should I pass or fail those kanji?

You should be concerned about getting the correct balance, but I wouldn't fail a card over it.

Jarvik7 Wrote:You should be concerned about getting the correct balance, but I wouldn't fail a card over it.

This. It's important if you want to write good-looking and easy to read kanji but it's not something that you will become horrible at just because you didn't fail a card over it. Like with everything else when it comes to languages, input before output. Worry about how well you write the kanji once you already recognize and remember them well.

Or you can work at both at the same time.

Perfect your strokes now as you are learning them. Look at how radicals take shape and form when places around different parts of the 'kanji square'. Look at where positioning fits with strokes centering on other, notice patterns, they are all over the place with kanji.

Eg;

http://www.yamasa.cc/members/ocjs/kanjid...e?OpenForm
設 this character for example
http://www.yamasa.cc/members/ocjs/kanjid...enDocument
Notice where the end of 几 aligns a little above the 1st line on top of 口 in 言う. If you notice these tiny (but easy) discrepancies you'll get nice writing. These sorts of things don't need stories, you just know them once after writing them. Of course i don't do this for every character, i just do them for ones where my characters look absolutely horrible, but its really good to do. You may progress slower than you would like to, but speed isn't always a good thing, remember that.

edit: btw don't fail your card

As an aside, has anyone else been surprised at how neat their Kanji have become? I don't write them overmuch, but the first 1500 or so have become quite nice looking...