“That [idea] came from a classic “What if?” ~~Ann Bancroft
A Journalist Tries Fiction and Wins an Award
There’s nothing like cancer to alter a person’s outlook on life. But what if you don’t want to talk about your own experiences? Ann Bancroft shows us how to make a real life experience a springboard for fiction as she talks about creating Almost Family: A Novel.
If you’ve had a manuscript sitting in a drawer for years, there’s advice about that too in the interview below. Please keep reading.
BLG: Tell us about your writing background and how your career in journalism helped or hindered you as you wrote this novel.
AB: For more than 20 years, I worked for newspapers, wire services and, occasionally, magazines. The daily discipline required for those jobs really helped me with the first essentials in writing a novel – starting, focusing and sticking to it.
The scope of a novel was hard for me. My years-long reporter’s habit of summarizing and leaving out descriptive details got in the way of opening up my writing, slowing the pace and widening the lens of my story. But journalism gave me practice in close listening, capturing essential dialogue, observing, and editing. It wasn’t too hard for me to be a ruthless editor of my own work, “killing my darlings,” as they say, to keep the story tighter and on track.
For about a year I had the privilege of working as an editorial writer at the Sacramento Bee. That gave me the opportunity to learn how to write with an opinion, and to put more of my own voice into my work.
BLG: I’m fascinated by the relationships in this book. What do you hope readers will learn about friendship? About support? About mothers and daughters?
AB: I hoped to show how deep friendships can be formed despite differences in culture, religion, sexual orientation and backgrounds. My characters bonded over profound shared experiences — they all faced terminal diagnoses, and later learned they shared similar, painful family issues — but it wasn’t those difficulties that created the friendships. It was their commitment to one another, and to opening up in an authentic way.
Protagonist Liz is a mother who doesn’t know how to talk to her daughter until she learns how to understand the ways in which her ex-husband’s alcoholism affected them both, leading to near-estrangement. With the support of her new friends Dave and Rhonda, she learns to open up honestly to her daughter, not always successfully but in a way that ultimately heals them both.
BLG: How did your experiences battling cancer inspire you? How much did you borrow from your own experiences?
AB: After my first bout of cancer, which took about a year of treatments and recovery from treatments, I really was sick of it all and did not want to write about cancer, particularly not my own. But there were so many things I saw and felt during that year it was hard to not write about them. Facing mortality, for example, and the unexpected gifts that come with that. The often odd, sometimes funny ways people react when one has cancer. Most significantly, I wanted to show the ways in which cancer doesn’t change you. It doesn’t turn you into a saint or a sage, it doesn’t confer bravery or heroism, it doesn’t remove all pettiness, jealousy, awkwardness or fear. It does provide some extreme experiences that can alter one’s worldview, open one up emotionally, and enhance empathy.
My experience as a mentor to breast cancer patients really did the most to inspire this novel. I befriended women whose responses to their cancer were different from my own, and who came from backgrounds different from my own in just about every way. That was the germ of the idea of having people bond in a support group for Stage Four cancer patients.
Why Stage Four? That came from the classic question that’s so helpful in writing fiction: “What if?” I had been very fortunate during my first year of cancer. Though aggressive, my cancer had not metastasized. I had a good job with excellent health insurance and tremendously supportive colleagues, family and friends. My husband was there all the way. But what if none of those things had been true? What if I’d been alone, having just gone through divorce and then a terrible breakup, and had been diagnosed with Stage Four instead of Stage One? That’s how my main character, Liz, was born.
BLG: Tell us about your writing process for this book. How did you plot, plan, and pace this story and when did you let the story emerge and wait to edit later? What was the most useful feedback you received?
AB: I began this novel because I wanted to learn how to write fiction. I joined writers’ groups, took classes, and wrote a couple of terrible drafts. I am not a good plotter or planner. I’m more of a “pantser,” and the story often emerges as I’m writing. I’ve had so many years of editing as I write, it’s hard for me to get through many pages without editing, but eventually I wrote for some long spurts without rewriting along the way.
I had a couple of chapters and some scenes in mind, and the story developed from there. I found a teacher who helped to keep me accountable, and made myself sit down and write every morning – at least two hours or 750 words (a small enough goal to reliably reach). I would read it aloud to him, some ten pages at a time. He never sent edits, just said, “stop there” and asked questions. That way I could hear what was missing or flat or (so often!) written like a newspaper story. He (the late Tom Spanbauer, to whom I dedicated the book) offered the greatest feedback, because I was required to listen, see, think about and fix it myself.
BLG: We’ve both been members of Amherst Writers and Artists groups. I found them to be wonderfully encouraging. How did they contribute to your ability to craft scenes and tell the story that you wanted to tell?
AB: The AWA method of writing to prompts for short periods of time is tremendously freeing and helped me trust my own creativity and strengthen my writing voice. I found the process so satisfying I became certified to lead AWA groups and have done so for more than a decade.
BLG: How did you find your publisher? Did they encourage you to apply for the Sarton Award or did you do that on your own?
AB: Long story. When I reached “the end” in my writing, my teacher urged me to send the draft to three agents. I hadn’t hired an editor or even sent it around to beta readers! Big mistake. What I really needed was a developmental editor to help me more tightly focus. But the biggest of the three agents accepted it, to my shock. I made some suggested fixes, getting the new draft back to the agent like a good journalist, far too quickly and again, without feedback. As a result, I received lovely rejections.
The book stayed in a drawer for four years, until I did some editing and it won Best Unpublished Novel in the San Diego Book Awards. Finally, during Covid and in the same year I had a recurrence of my breast cancer, I hired a developmental editor to read it over and write a couple of memos with suggestions for more revisions. I worked to make the plot tighter and the mother-daughter relationship more central to the story.
When “the end” was truly the end, at least of the writing, I decided to submit to a hybrid publisher, She Writes Press. It’s run by women for women authors, and provides a supportive community as well as good cover design, clean publication and distribution through Simon and Schuster. They provided a list of credible awards and reviewers, with Sarton high on the list, so I sent my book to Story Circle Network. So happy I did!
BLG: What did it feel like to learn that you were a winner?
AB: I was thrilled. It was tremendously validating to have my book chosen.
BLG: What advice do you have for non-fiction writers who want to try fiction?
AB: Take some classes, read books on the craft of writing fiction, do creative writing exercises (AWA workshops are great for this). Get comfortable with writing as if you are talking to a friend.
BLG: What else would you like us to know and where can readers learn more about you?
AB: I have a website, annbancroftauthor.com, and an Ann Bancroft Author Facebook page, though I don’t update either as often as I should. I can be reached by email at annbancroftauthor@gmail.com.
BLG: Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts and ideas with us. If you have a story inside of you, and who doesn’t, get the first draft done and then start your revisions. Accept the advice you agree with. Most importantly, share your story with the world.
- Lynn Goodwin
Disrupted ~ Runner up in the San Francisco Book Festival & Winner of a Literary Titan Book Award & a PenCraft Book Award
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