From Idea to Bestseller: Fiction Novelist Carolyn Parkhurst Speaks on the Writing Process

Most people have likely never even heard of a square egg press. And even after hearing about it, only a few might know what it actually does.

Carolyn Parkhurst, fiction novelist, owns a square egg press – used to literally make eggs square – and in fact, used it as inspiration for a key scene in her first bestselling novel “The Dogs of Babel.” Visiting a communications class at American University on Monday, Parkhurst detailed her process of writing fiction, including how she gets her ideas, how she researches some of those ideas, and even some of the business aspects of getting published and selling a novel.

Coming up with ideas seems easy for Parkhurst, appropriate given that she has “always wanted to be a writer.” Like the square egg press, many of her ideas come from seemingly random places, most of them from her own life. In particular, she credited her dreams for some of her best ideas, saying that dreams are a “vivid, powerful part of our consciousness” and they are excellent for finding writing material. But ideas don’t always flow freely, as Parkhurst indicated in response to a student’s question regarding writers block. “You can’t wait for inspiration to show up,” she said, explaining how she would force herself to sit down and write one page a day, no matter what the subject matter was, and eventually something would click. Making it a “rule,” she said, made it easier to keep up the habit and get the ideas flowing.

In fiction “you have to get details right so you don’t distract your readers,” said Parkhurst. This opened the door to the next topic in the conversation, researching for her novels. Writing novels is a long process – “The Dogs of Babel” took two and a half years alone – and Parkhurst indicated that much of that time is devoted to researching new details and ideas. She elaborated by giving numerous examples of her research: she watched dogs sleep for “The Dogs of Babel,” read about and performed extensive research on numerous locations for “Lost and Found,” and although she didn’t travel often for research, she took advantage of every opportunity to do first-hand research while traveling for any other reason.

“No two people write the same way,” Parkhurst said. For her, writing is all about taking a basic plot idea and fleshing it out throughout the entire writing process. After the book is written initially, however, she explained that there was a relatively firm course of action. Key to the post-writing process is revision. According to Parkhurst, it is easy to “lose perspective” when writing. Allowing other people to read it, provide feedback, and being willing to let go of parts that you’ve written is an essential, if difficult, step before publishing. She is confident that the editorial process provides results, saying, “I am certain that my books are better books.”

Parkhurst pointed out her three years of experience working in a bookstore, explaining that it allowed her a look into the business side of books, a side she says is “much more important than I think a lot of writers realize.” This combined with her experience working with her publisher helped her to learn “what makes people pick up a book,” and incorporate that into her strategy for sales. This meant carefully deciding the cover art to be used, as well as working to get good strategic placement of the book in bookstores.

Parkhurst has both a children’s book and a third novel in progress. The process is taking longer for these, she said, due to more time-consuming jobs in her personal life, like taking care of her two children. It is tempting to write a modified version of the same story over and over, she explained, particularly after the incredible success of her first novel. However, she made it clear that she makes a conscious effort to write something different each and every time she starts a new project. Ultimately though, she admitted, she just follows whatever leads her imagination provides her with.