Genre: Autobiography – Sports, Celebrity (Forthcoming Material)
Author: Oisin Fagan; Prominent Irish Boxer
Methods: Developmental editing, proofreading, line editing, beta reading.
Techniques: Complete substantive editing including but not limited to: Copyediting, stylistic editing, and developmental editing.
o Worked through 164,000 word manuscript over 3 month period, cutting it down to a much more manageable 132,000.
o Reorganized the manuscript to follow a chronological pattern to improve readability.
o Detailed line edits used to reduce unnecessary repetition and cut down on excessive slang without sacrificing author’s voice.
o Worked through full manuscript to correct grammatical, spelling, and linguistic errors throughout.
o Did a final work through after author approved suggested edits, providing a clean and polished final product ready for potential publication.
Outcomes: Final manuscript delivered a comprehensive yet engaging retelling of the author’s life, while limiting repetitiveness and maintaining a quick and interesting pace.
Timeline: Full project took 10 weeks to complete including 2 rounds of revisions
Software: Original manuscript was written in Microsoft Word, and the edit was handled in the same program. Stylistic, structural, and other over-arching edits were made via commented suggestions (then, after approval, implemented during final work through.)

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Short Story excerpt:

When I was around four years old, I lived with my parents on The North Circular Rd, close to Gardiner Street, in Dublin’s north inner city. We didn’t live there for very long. Perhaps the series of bad luck I encountered whilst there was the reason for our short residence. perhaps, the reason being was because of the series of bad luck I’d encountered, whilst there. Regardless, our apartment had its front door on the basement level, rather than on the same level as the street. I remember it took me exactly twelve steps to reach the front door from the main path. The initial spell of bad luck came when I decided to take two milk bottles, which had been delivered that morning, from street level all the way down the steps to the kitchen.

I started on my journey a very confident little fella, but after the first couple of steps that I’d easily hopped down, I lost my balance by catching my heel on a rock I’d originally left there a few days previously.¹ A brief note-to-self flashed like a beacon through my young mind, tidy up after playing with stones; alas, it was too late and² I crashed down the rest of the concrete steps, glass bottles in hand. Obviously, a big mess ensued.³ Both my hands had been cut to ribbons, looking akin to a bowl of cherries fresh from the juicer.⁴ Needless to say, I was not a happy camper.⁵

I remember my parents hearing the din and running from the kitchen to pick me up. They then began to extract shards of glass from my hands amid yelps from their hysterical little boy. They brought me to the hospital as soon as I was relatively cleaned up. The next thing I remember was getting stitches in the palms of my hands, which surprisingly exceeded the pain of my original accident. My parents had nearly nursed me back to health when, but a few weeks later, they were called back into action, delivering me back to the same emergency room for Round 2. Luckily for me, the hospital was only around the corner, and it got plenty of use during our stay in the inner city.

Granted, I was only 4-years old, but I have to blame this next faux pas; most-certainly, on my very ‘sweet-tooth.’ After my hands had healed up sufficiently, a builder started a job at our place, ironically enough,⁶ attempting to alleviate some of the dangers that the steps-to-the-kitchen posed by building a ramp, which would allow a much easier descent. After work, the builder had all his tools packed away before he left, but one parcel stood out to me and caught my attention. And very much like, when Homer Simpson day-dreams about “CHHHHH-OCO-LATEEE” as a dribble of saliva runs from his mouth; the same could have also been said about me as a 4-year old, when I imagined any type of sugary substance.⁷

Imagine my sheer elation when I spotted the half-bag of opened cement he left in the corner, which seemed to be tempting me ever closer. Could this have been the biggest bag of sugar ever known to man? I approached the bag timidly at first, scooped a handful of the powder out and stuffed it into my salivated mouth. I began to munch unsuccessfully. I continued trying to chew, confused, expecting the sugar-rush euphoria Instead, I experienced a sudden horrible sensation – a burning of my tongue, gums, and lips.

Luckily, I hadn’t swallowed any of it, which seemed very strange, as I was trying my very hardest to do so; however, my throat clammed up and, in turn, restricted the cement from entering the esophagus, which would have continued an agonising⁸ and potentially fatal digestion process.

I screamed, and as I did, the powder blew mist-like from my clouding mouth. Again, my Mam and Dad were on the ball and ran outside to assist me. Mam put her fingers into my mouth to scrape out any remaining muck and then got me to rinse-and-spit, rinse-and-spit, and rinse-and-spit once more. Despite her efforts, my⁹ mouth was now starting to swell up in boils and, I felt my tongue enlarging too. A return to the hospital was on the cards. Basically, the doctors repeated what my Mam and Dad had already done but they had some tubes ready in case my throat was enflamed so much that it would cut off the air-supply. Thankfully, it didn’t come to that and after monitoring me closely, the swelling was reducing slowly-but-surely.¹⁰

After the hospital, I was left with a lot of sores in and around my mouth. My lips were raw and broke out in blisters for a few days. Once I was no longer in danger, the jokes started to roll in. unbeknownst to my 4-year old mind. I remember when the folks were telling people the story of what happened, I wondered why everyone started laughing when a friend of my Dad’s, Christy,¹¹ quipped that my folks that I had been “literally saved from shitting a brick.”

Water Wars:
We moved from town out to Tallaght soon after that but I had a few mishaps as a child there too, so maybe the bad luck was just following me, or perhaps a more logical excuse was simply that I was just a little spacer.¹²

I was only settling in and making friends as normal young-lads do. As a result, We moved to Tallaght soon after that. My childhood there consisted of many great memories inspired by some of the kids I hung around with, many of whom are still my best pals today. even though we started out as rivals of sorts.

I met the Homans when I started playing football. I mostly hung around the older brother, Darren, who was close to my age, but I spent a lot of time around his younger siblings Ger and Stephen as well. ¹³Ger Homan for example-I met him when I started playing football- was younger than I, as was his brother Stephen. Initially, I hung around with his older brother Darren who was around my age. All of the Homans were great people and we got up to loads of mischief back in the day. However, Before we really knew each other very well, we were in different classes at school. We played inter-varsity sports against each other, giving birth to a great rivalry…

We competed against each other in soccer, basketball, Gaelic football, and hurling. The winners held the bragging rights over the other group until the next big match. usually crowning the other class as top dogs. I was the leader of one group called “The Celts”, while our opponents were called “The Rovers”. During playtime, we used to try capturing members of each group in a game called Hostages-Stuck in the Mud. When we captured a hostage, we’d either thump him- not in a vicious way, mind you, but a few kicks in the arse and a dead-arm¹⁴. The captured hostage would then have to wait for his teammates to try and free him by diving underneath their wide-open legs. in a stance universal for releasing all hostages in this particular game. We’d try to waylay their rescue mission by attempting to detain them before they were able to free their friends.

Things escalated One beautiful summer’s day, we caught a glimpse of the Rovers gallivanting through our neighbourhood. We decided to ambush the entourage with water balloons and drenched them to the skin. It was hilarious. I couldn’t wait to get back to school after the weekend for the banter session to start.

As I was about to enter my house, I heard, “Get him!” They had followed me back to my road, and before I entered the gates of our home, they dragged me down onto the ground and proceeded to absolutely soak me with water.

They even went so far as to fill plastic shopping bags full of water, and while four lads held me down, the other one would slowly pour the contents onto me.

I still recall the event with very fond memories because the lads that I used to fight with so vehemently as an eight-year-old became some of the very best friends I have today. It’s funny the way things work out.

1. This is a little wordy. Consider revising for flow. Ex: “I landed on a rock. Likely a rock forgotten on the steps by myself not much earlier.” Or “I landed on a rock I’d left on the steps not two days prior.” Or something similar. Just letting the action be more straightforward but keeping your bemused tone. ↩︎
2. I like this, it adds a comedic touch to the scene. However, as a reader, I can’t help but be somewhat turned off by the idea that you would remember something like a reactionary thought from when you were only four. I think that you can keep the comedic touch by your previous sentence, and nix this part altogether. ↩︎
3. Replace this with a short sentence describing the mess. It will help your reader stay engaged in the scene. ↩︎
4. Damn. That’s vivid imagery – nice work. ↩︎
5. This statement is not only unnecessary, it cuts the serious tone of the scene. You want to have your readers feel for your character (4 year old you), so leave them on the vivid, painful imagery of the previous sentence. ↩︎
6. Better to let the reader catch that 😉 They love making connections like that. ↩︎
7. This, while being entertaining, is taking away from the scene. ↩︎
8. UK spelling. American English spelling is agonizing. I like that everything is coming from your natural speech and spelling, and think it adds a great layer of authenticity to the piece. If you do want to consider reworking spelling to match U.S. English, let me know. I’ll mark the ones I notice throughout with something like “UK” as a comment, just in case. ↩︎
9. You’ve used however a few times, so just to keep repetition at bay we’ll reword. ↩︎
10. Sometimes less is more – the important part is that you went to the hospital, yet again. No need to go into this detail here, let the action of the story continue. ↩︎
11. If this person doesn’t come back into play significantly in the story, no need to add their name. Readers will try to remember all of the characters you introduce, so make sure that the named ones are important to your overall story. ↩︎
12. Consider rewording. You can tie in earlier information, like how close the hospital was. Ex. “We moved out of town to Tallaght soon after that, and while the hospital was no longer right around the corner, my bad luck stayed just as close.” Or something? ↩︎
13. Possible rewording for the first couple sentences. It is mostly just reworking the way you currently have it organized to allow for better flow. What do you think? ↩︎
14. This is a common enough phrase to not need italics ↩︎