Tools

I've been drawing solely with mechanical pencils my entire life, and found shadows to be incredibly hard. My friend had this leftover art tool set, so she gave it to me. I did some 30 second sketches with one of the graphite pencils and found my control to be severely lacking, I have no idea how to make sharp edges or smooth shadows. If anyone has any tips on how to make the pencil more manageable, I would love that. It's the 8B royal graphite from a Royal Langnickel set.