Microfiction | Sheri Jacobs 10-Word Story Challenge

Only the Moon

And a question about conjunctions

Only the moon can know the truth of her secrets.

Well, to be sure, that’s more like a 10-word photo story, so maybe not what Sheri Jacobs had in mind when she dared us to write a 10-word story.

Does it get me off the hook if I tell you (truthfully) that I found the image after I came up with the story? 😉

The moon story wasn’t my first 10-word story — this one was —

None of them believed he could hold on any longer.

And then, this one came along -

The news was grim, and it solved all my problems.

I’ll give you a sec to ponder my three 10-word stories.

Ok, time’s up!

Now, I have a question for you —

What do you think of ‘and’ and ‘but’ as conjunctions?

I ask the question because in the original version of the grim news story, the conjunction was ‘but’ i.e. the news was grim but it solved all my problems.

I catch myself using ‘but’ all the time. It’s become a habit. A habit that shows up in my writing to the point that I wish I would stop using ‘but’ as often as I do.

I read an article some time ago about using ‘and’ instead of ‘but’. I can’t find the article now, but I found this one — see, there I go again with ‘but’! 😆

In his article, Michael Sorensen, explains -

When used to connect two phrases in a sentence, the word “but” essentially dismisses the first phrase altogether. This isn’t always an issue, but when it undoes praise, agreement, or an important point, it can start to become a problem.

I wonder if Michael knew he’d used ‘but’ in his second sentence! 😜

I decided to change the conjunction in the grim news story from ‘but’ to ‘and’ so that the grim news and the my problems parts of the story were of equal importance. To my mind, ‘and’ keeps the story open to a broader range of interpretations — ‘but’ shifts the focus to my problems which may not be anywhere near as engaging for the reader as the grim news.

Interested in your thoughts on the use of ‘and’ and ‘but’.

The 10-Word Story Challenge

Sheri Jacobs started the ultra-constrained writing challenge a week ago -

I wouldn’t have known about it if it weren’t for Daniella Montage who tagged me into her response to the challenge —

She in turn had been tagged by Amanda Laughtland —

So now it’s my turn to tag a few writers — apologies in advance if you’ve been tagged already —

Jenine Bsharah Baines | Gustave Deresse | Thalia Dunn | Caroline de Braganza | RN Manchester | E. Ardincaple | William J Spirdione | Lee Ameka | Annelise Lords | MN 🙏 ✨

Many thanks to Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) for accepting this piece into her publication, The Brain is a Noodle — can’t think of a better home for it. And, by the way, Lucy, consider yourself tagged into this challenge too! 😊

Thank you all for reading. 🙏 💕

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