Back in November I wrote about a new author who had asked me to edit his first story, a "Zombie Apocalypse" tale set in Australia. Now, when we say 'edit' here on SoL we really mean what the outside world calls 'proofreading'. Out in the paid world, the editor is in charge. If he says that paragraph is wasted space it's going away. A proofreader, on the other hand, is just reading the draft to find all the speling and gramer issues. The proofreader is definately not in charge.
Back here in SoL-land, the author retains final authority for his story. All us 'editors' can do is point out that this word is mis-spelled, that sentence fragment needs a verb, and so on. We can point out that Raul's best friend is named Phyllis in Chapter 2, but it has somehow morphed into Phoebe by Chapter 4. And so on. It's the author's decision to make the changes he wants, or retain the original if he wants.
In this case, I think I overwhelmed AgroDavid with all the red ink in the manuscript I sent him, because he stopped emailing me after a month or two. So, any spelling or grammar issues in the first couple of chapters are my fault, but I won't take the blame for the later ones. :)
Still, I said at the time that it was a good fun read, and it made more sense than any other zombie story I'd ever read. It's finally up, titled "Life, Love, and All That." You can find it on his shiny new AgroDavid page or in the "updated serials" list. It's not perfect, but I'm not pointing any issues out here. Read it and find them yourselves. It's a great story and I really enjoyed getting to read it first. I know that, with this experience behind him, his next story will be even better.