How do characters write in Steampunk

I needed to have my character write a report.

First I had to find out what people used to write with in the time period. Once I know that, then I can take it to extremes.

Did they use fountain pens in the late 1800s? Yes, they did but people still used ink pens with metal nibs. Fountain pens costs much more and they had problems and were messy to fill. This was a period of rapid change in the pens and the inks used with them. I was not able to find out if they made and used graphite pencils during this period.  Is this where the use of pencils came to be looked down on? Ball point pens did not become popular until the 1940s.

Of course I took the easy way out and had a retro character that still used metal nibs quill pens, like the ones used by artist today.

You can spend way too much time researching things like this. You can also end up writing to much about pens instead of writing about the story.

What could a pen have to do with the story? Well the ink bottle is filled with nitroglycerin. Gives her writing a bang.

Write on, draw on.     Professor Voltage