Schedule a phone consultation to get started:

• The consultation is an affordable way to talk in with an editor about your ideas, to get guidance before you begin your project, or to ask questions as you work on your manuscript.

• Sign up below:

Or choose Comprehensive Manuscript Editing:

• Developmental Editing—locates deeper story problems and helps you develop the writing to fix them. Story arc/structure problems, and character development are common examples. You have strengths as a writer. It’s my job to capitalize on those strengths, and help you develop the material where it isn’t working so that your story is ready to compete in the marketplace.

• Line Editing—ferrets out craft problems, like inconsistencies in tone, clichés, deficient descriptions, too much telling instead of showing, passive verb choices, dialogue that doesn’t work, imagery that scuttles the atmosphere of your project, and many more elements that go into making a manuscript ready for publishers.

• Copy editing—aligns your manuscript with the style publishers use. I employ The Chicago Manual of Style and Merriam Webster, as do most book publishers. I know the rules and make sure your manuscript follows them.

• Proofreading—perfects pages that are ready to go to the printer. Most writers are not at this stage, but you may be if you are self-publishing. It’s about punctuation, paragraph indents, word spacing, italics, typefaces, and the like.

Click here to read about Comprehensive Manuscript Editing and get on my schedule:

Common problems where I can help:

• You are stuck and can’t make your story work; you need help seeing a solution.

• You need help with story structure.

• You have a finished draft, but you want to be sure it’s ready for agents and editors.

• You have submitted your manuscript to agents, gotten rejections, and you need fresh eyes to discern story, writing and marketing problems.

Click here to contact me.

Client feedback:

Here’s what Lisa’s clients say:

“I’ve told anyone who would listen that working with Lisa Dale Norton for me was the equivalent of getting an MFA degree. I started writing as a journalist, and finished my work with her as a memoir writer. To me this means I was using the techniques of fiction to craft a story, instead of reporting on it.” —Sally Petersen

“Her work ethic regarding timely responses, pricing, and a genuine commitment to excellence is first rate. I highly recommend her.” —Joe Pritchard

Click here to read more from clients.

Shimmering Images—America’s book for writing memoir

Read Free—Chapters 1–3 of Shimmering Images

How I came to write Shimmering Images: A Handy Little Guide to Writing Memoir:

After interacting with thousands of writers in classes and public gatherings, it dawned on me that the real reason people didn’t write their stories was: They simply didn’t know HOW to begin.

Every writing book on the market told them what they should do to create a story, but few offered instruction on how to do it.

With that in mind, I wrote down the simple techniques I’d used for years to help writers get their memories onto the page.

Library Journal  found Shimmering Images “hard to put down.”

Click here to buy Shimmering Images.