Flagship

I’ve just finished republishing The Soul Institute, my flagship novel. Exploring my main themes via numerous archetypal characters, complex at 183,000 words and 552 pages, TSI is nevertheless tight and reads quickly; I find its energies high all the way through.

paperback:
Amazon (trade)
lulu.com (mass market)

eBook:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Smashwords

I certainly wouldn’t say the same about its problematic, sprawling, 377,145-word first draft. I’m leaving the history of the novel’s gestation to a forthcoming seventh installment of my Writing Biography posts, but the short history is that I printed a final manuscript of The Soul Institute in 1999 and considered the novel completed, ready to send to publishers. But I wound up leaving it untouched for ten years as I concentrated on shorter works, figuring that such a long novel couldn’t be published until after some shorter ones found an audience. I’d assumed this book might just need a little light editing.

Jipo Jarg, vice president for Academic Affairs and disinherited heiress

So I was surprised to reread the novel in 2009 and find it required a major revision. Then it needed another tweak in 2011, another in 2014, and yet another in 2015 when I published it on Sortmind Press. I still consider the 2015 edition to be the final version of the Soul Institute story; by itself 2015 is still a good novel, but to correct typos, deal with some formatting issues, and cut some repetition, I issued an updated edition in 2020. Now I’ve made another update with a much better cover. I want my flagship novel in the best condition possible and ready for new marketing.

The novel describes a chaotic November at a small Texas coastal university founded on royalties from its unhinged director’s bestselling novel. It came from my recurring dream of a return to Rice University–not the common anxiety dream about getting behind in classes, but the urge to explore a vast, stupendous, mystic Source, the Other World, the sanctuary of a foggy university of Soul. The stories of several sets of characters eventually interlace:

• TSI administrators and faculty pursuing farcical love affairs, power struggles, and fantasy life.
• Students who came for the life of Soul but find themselves dismayed by the surfacing chaos.
• Ninth graders at the local junior high school with their separate world of inhalant abuse and gang violence.
• Members of a past paradise, Waxtor Carnationist College; though they have deep genealogical ties to TSI, Waxtor is the Other World they seek to return to.

Clean-up

Derrick Dexter, chair of the English Department and refugee from Waxtor Carnationist College

To my dismay, I’ve known for some time that even repeated proofing will leave some typos and grammatical errors, especially in a long manuscript, even given the thorough 2020 refresh. So the time came last month to give the novel yet another scrubbing as well as a new wraparound cover to impart an improved feel to the printed object.

But though my initial plan was simply to use Grammarly for a quick error check, I soon saw I was in for a big project. I began to see formatting and style issues that impaired the reading flow, and I discovered that my 2020 reduction of characters’ italicized thoughts didn’t go far enough; the remaining italicized thinking now struck me as forced and awkward. I easily converted it to narrative voice or, where redundant, just cut it. Although I once overindulged in italicized thinking, I found it strengthened The Soul Institute to eliminate it.

As far as typos are concerned, Grammarly is useful for finding the true howlers, but is imperfect. I ran it three times because I noticed that it sometimes doesn’t catch all the errors, or might only catch three of the same four errors.

So I came up with thirty-eight embarrassing typos to correct, discounting hordes of formatting changes, hyphenations, and minor issues the average reader wouldn’t stumble over. Thirty-eight out of 183,426 words may indicate a 0.0207% error rate, but each of those thirty-eight will jerk the reader out of the willing suspension of disbelief.

I also updated the Waxtor genealogical chart that’s now included in trade and mass market paper editions, as well as the eBook versions.

Cover

I took 117 new photos of chessmen (just counted) with a wraparound cover in mind, and discovered an interesting problem in my last couple designs: getting distracted by the loveliness of the entire back/spine/front image, which people generally will never grasp in its entirety. You must keep in mind that only the right half, the front cover, can be the focus. The wraparound in other words must serve the front cover’s impact. People will obviously note it’s a wraparound cover, but generally will never spread open the book from the rear to admire the full image. Weirdly, and this may be a result of how I compose images, way too many of my 117 photos emphasized the left side (thus the back cover) of the image.

There’s also always an interesting war going on between image and text. The text must be readable, even on a thumbnail, and the image and text mustn’t cancel each other out. The text color can also make or break the image.

Fairness

Moolka Waxtor, writer in residence, cousin to Derrick and his anima

As I wrote in this blog in October 2011, my goal in The Soul Institute from its first conception was what I’ve long called “Shakespearian fairness” to all characters. Each character, no matter his or her moral or mental state, no matter how noble or ridiculous or pathetic, is an actor on the stage of the novel, to be respected and understood, given time to develop, and fully integrated into the framework of the story. I wanted to present all these character entities and what they meant to an ideal reader. This ideal reader is sometimes myself, especially in editing mode, but almost always winds up going beyond my personal concerns and striving to connect with other human beings who are open-minded and curious, willing to both severely judge my writing and learn from any honest energy in it.

Fannin Richardson, chair of the Art Department, passionate painter, secretly in love with the director’s wife

I marvel at this novel. What a gift from the universe this book was. Naturally working on this update makes me want to write another long literary novel, but I know from unhappy past experience that you just can’t force something like this. If it’s appropriate that I write another such novel, it shall be.

copyright 2024 by Michael D. Smith

The Soul Institute – Background

Relevant TSI Blog Posts
10/18/11: The Soul Institute
12/16/15: The Soul Institute is Published
1/11/16: The Soul Institute in Paperback
1/19/16: Jipo and Derrick
1/22/16: Mitar, Rhea and Inhalant Abuse – from The Soul Institute
2/4/16: Himal and Moolka
2/6/16: Fannin and Felicia: Wasn’t Art Enough Passion?
6/13/17: Milton Raeynold Glouair IV from The Soul Institute
4/10/20: The … 2020–Soul … Institute–Clean-Up!!!!!!