History Main / CouldntFindaPen

* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'' did a variant where the victim didn't write the message - it was written by the killer in an attempt to implicate someone else.

* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'': In "Send in the Clowns", several suspects receive threatening notes (one of them delivered by [[BrokenWindowWarning a brick through the window]]) written in pig's blood.

* ''Literature/{{Tempest}}'': In ''Tempest Unleashed'', [[BigBad Tiamat]]'s goons kill most of the selkie royal family, kidnap Kona, and leave a note on the mirror in his blood that says, "[[IHaveYourWife The new selkie king requests your presence at the Sahul Shelf.]]"

* ''Fanfic/VowOfNudity'': When a vindictive professor locks Spectra in an empty room to take an exam, she doesn't even leave her a quill or ink. Undeterred, Spectra shapeshifts into a BirdPerson to pluck a feather, then blackens her blood and uses it as ink to complete the test.

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'':

* At one point in ''FanFic/FalloutEquestria'', Pip comes across a fresh mess of blood and gore and considers using it to write a message for her pegasus companion who had flown ahead to do some scouting earlier. She immediately chastises herself for becoming so numb to the horrors of the wasteland that ''that'' was her first reaction to it.

* ''[[Fanfic/StarWarsVsWarhammer40K Star Wars vs. Warhammer 40K]]'': While attempting to broker a ceasefire between the Republic and the Imperium, Ahsoka asks Farnus -- an Imperial Guardsman she took prisoner after finding him injured on the battlefield -- to deliver her ceasefire terms to his commanding officer. However, Farnus initially refuses due to her message having been typed onto a DataPad, which he and his superiors view as heretical xenotech and believe to be booby-trapped. When Farnus requests for her to instead write down her terms using pen and paper ([[NoPaperFuture which are rarely used in the Republic outside of museums]]), Ahsoka is unable to find any ink and resorts to biting into her finger and using her own blood as ink.

[[folder:Legend]]

* Creator/MarkTwain's ''Literature/TheAdventuresOfTomSawyer''. Tom and Huck Finn swear an oath to not talk about seeing Injun Joe murder Dr. Robinson. They write the oath on a shingle and sign it in their own blood.
* [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] and [[AvertedTrope averted]] in ''Literature/TheBelgariad'': When the party finds themselves in such a situation, Polgara has a quill, ink, parchment, etc. ready to hand. She explains that on a [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld past occasion]], she found herself needing to leave a note ''without'' the necessary implements, and ended up using her own blood to write the message. Following the event, she took steps to make sure it wouldn't happen again.
** Alas, this incident never appears in Polgara's autobiographical {{prequel}}, so we get no answers to [[FridgeLogic such questions as]] why a ''sorcerer'' couldn't just create writing materials out of thin air. (Some enemies' SupernaturalSensitivity might be one reason, but we just don't know.)
* ''Literature/TheBooksOfTheOrder'': In ''Geist'', the protagonist's sidekick discovers a rune written with blood while looking for a missing person. Apparently the blood wouldn't have been strictly needed, so it was a case of the missing person not being able to get a pen.
* In ''Literature/ABrothersPrice'' Jerin was burning a letter when people came through secret passages and abducted him. He struggled for long enough to be able to write one three-letter word in soot before they hauled him away, the name of the one he thought responsible. Many characters in that world are illiterate, and they didn't have time to clean up as his bodyguards were trying to break through his locked door.
* In ''Literature/ChittyChittyBangBang'' the children are prisoners of the mob, and are forced to write a message for help by pricking pinholes into a large-denomination franc bill.

* One of the villains in ''[[Literature/JackelianSeries The Court Of The Air]]'' is fatally impaled during a sword fight in an open snowy field, by a fugitive he knows has been living under a false name. As he's dying, he ''tries'' to pass word of his foe's hidden identity using his own blood to write it down. In this case, the DyingClue aspect of this trope is subverted, because the snow he writes the man's secret down on melts before his body can be found.

* Subverted in the Creator/AgathaChristie novel ''Literature/DeathOnTheNile'': a murdered woman uses her own blood to trace a letter on the wall, presumably the first of her assassin's name. This doesn't work because Poirot, Race, and Dr. Bessner are all smart enough to know [[spoiler: the victim would have died instantly and couldn't have written anything after being shot.]] The only reaction it produces is a snarky comment from Poirot that killer [[YouWatchTooMuchX is apparently a fan of old-fashioned melodramas.]] It later turns out that [[spoiler: the killer wrote the letter. In a double-twist on this trope, it was written to implicate one of the people actually directly involved in the murder, in an attempt to make it look like another party was trying to frame her.]]
* In ''[[Literature/SienkiewiczTrilogy The Deluge]]'', Kmicic writes a letter with his own blood to make sure the other party knows he is not lying. He uses a quill for writing, so technically, not a pen.

** In ''Literature/MovingPictures'', CMOT Dibbler tries to write down an idea for a film that came to him in a dream on his bedsheets; he runs out of bedsheet and starts writing on a wall, which he then pays a troll to carry around for him.

* In Creator/HPLovecraft's ''Literature/TheDreamsInTheWitchHouse'', Walter Gilman refuses to sign the book of Azathoth in his own blood.
* In Brazilian book ''A Droga da Obediência'', one of the protagonists is captured inside the school. Just before being dragged out of the place, he asks his kidnapper to go to the bathroom, and uses the contents of a toilet to write a Morse code message to his friends.
* The Literature/EighthDoctorAdventures gives us the two-novel story ''Interference'', wherein [[spoiler: the Doctor]] winds up using his own blood to [[RoomFullOfCrazy cover the floor of his cell with arcane mathematical formulae]].

* ''Literature/TheGanymedeTakeover''. [[TheQuisling Gus Swenesgard]] sends one of his minions to contact the Black Muslim resistance to offer a WeCanRuleTogether deal. They [[ShootTheMessenger dump his naked corpse]] back in Gus's territory with the words WE DON'T NEED YOU, WHITE MAN [[CarvedMark carved on his back]] with lasers.

* Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/{{IT}}'' has several examples, most but not all from Pennywise.

* In ''Literature/JonathanStrangeAndMrNorrell'' Childermass briefly attempts to copy [[spoiler: the Book of the Raven King, which had been written as blue discoloration on a man's skin]], onto his own flesh. He quickly gives up for some of the many, many reasons no one should ever even try to copy out something in a language they don't know onto their skin, with a penknife, all alone in a cold and isolated area, [[spoiler: when the book covered the man's entire body except for groin, face and hands, and for all he knows size and placement of the marks is vital.]]
* In one of the ''Literature/{{Lovejoy}}'' novels, Lovejoy writes a note using his own urine as invisible ink.
* In ''Literature/TheLaundryFiles'' the Official Secrets Act and other non-disclosure agreements have to be signed in blood -- a sterile lancet or disposable needle and Sharps container are thoughtfully provided.

* In ''Literature/NewMoan'' (a parody of ''Literature/TheTwilightSaga''), this trope is played with. Teddy (the Edward {{Expy}}) gives Heffa (the Bella {{Expy}}) a note, written in some red substance. Heffa asks if it's blood, to which Teddy replies that blood is useless as ink since it clots too quickly, and it's just normal red ink.

* In ''Heaven's Queen'', third book of the ''Literature/ParadoxTrilogy'', Maat writes out a message for Devi using Devi's own blood while Devi is unconscious.
* In Creator/LarryNiven's ''Literature/ThePatchworkGirl'' the victim leaves "NAKF" written in his own blood on the rocks of the lunar surface. [[spoiler:He was trying to write "NAKED" indicating that his killer was naked: i.e. not wearing a space suit, which is quite a trick out on the surface of the moon.]]
* In ''Literature/ThePrideOfChanur'' [[HumansThroughAlienEyes Tully]] writes out some FirstContactMath in his own blood on the deck of the ''Pride'' after forcing his way onboard. Pyanfar had already pretty much rejected the theory that he was some kind of escaped exotic pet, but this evidence of a writing system clinches it.
* The demon summoned [[spoiler:by David Krake]] in the second part of ''[[Literature/SpecialCircumstances Princess of Wands]]'' uses the blood of some of his victims to continue the runes that his summoner wasn't able to finish [[spoiler:after taking three arrows to the head]].

* In ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' people who join the [[PrivateMilitaryContractors Second Sons]] traditionally sign in blood. They abandoned this tradition some time ago and started using red ink instead, because blood makes terrible ink. [[spoiler: When he joins the company, Tyrion mixes some of his blood into the ink he signs with.]]

* In the Mageworlds novel ''Literature/StarpilotsGrave'', a Magelord is revealed to have cut the throats of those piloting the warship he was riding and used their blood to write a cryptic note to an "Adept from the Forest World" on the windscreen before emptying the craft to vacuum, swiping a scout-craft, and setting it adrift on a sub-light trajectory which would bring it to the attention of the recipient some five centuries after the fact... and a few months after the death of said Magelord.
* The Creator/NeilGaiman-authored Literature/SherlockHolmes[=/=]Franchise/CthulhuMythos pastiche ''Literature/AStudyInEmerald'' has the two main detectives ([[spoiler: ''not'' Watson and Holmes]]) called to the murder of the nephew of Queen Victoria (actually one of the Great Old Ones). They find the word "Rache" written on the wall in blood. ''Green'' blood.

* In ''WebVideo/DeathNoteTheAbridgedSeriesKpts4tv'' when Light is [[spoiler: killing Higuchi]] by writing [[spoiler: Higuchi's]] name with his own blood and ends up stabbing himself repeatedly. HilarityEnsues: