When learning kanji, a lot of books and teachers expect you to memorize stroke order solely through practice and repetition (does the image remind anybody of their kanji book?). I’m definitely, all about repetition, but what they don’t tell you is that there is actually a way to write kanji in the correct stroke order without a lot of studying and memorization. Granted, you still have to learn what the kanji looks like, and you still have to know how to write it, but in terms of stroke order, there IS a better way.
EVERY kanji starts in the upper-left-hand corner (please let me know if you find one that doesn’t, I’d be very curious). You need to start every kanji somewhere up there, and move from left to right, slowly making your way down to the bottom-right hand corner. Basically, when writing kanji, you go top-left to bottom-right. Analyze a few “step-by-step” kanji stroke orders and you’ll see. It’s just that simple…kind of.
There are a few exceptions to the rule, where you have to draw certain strokes that are slightly less “top” or slightly less “left” than others, but you’ll have to find them out on your own. Still, even with these exceptions, you are still starting in the top-left and moving towards the bottom-right, or, in the case of the image above, bottom-middle (close enough right? And the long stroke on the far right actually starts in the middle-ish top anyways). Kanji takes a lot of practice, but the more you write it and see it, the easier it becomes.