1. We admit we are powerless over Story—that our writing lives have become unmanageable.
2. Come to believe that a Story greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity.
3. Make a decision to turn our lives over to the care of Story as we understand it.
4. Make a searching and fearless inventory of our writing.
5. Admit to ourselves and our writing community the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. We’re entirely ready to remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly remove our shortcomings.
8. Make a list of all characters we’ve harmed, and become willing to make amends to them all.
9. Make direct amends to such characters wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continue to take narrative inventory and when we are wrong, promptly edit.
11. Seek through workshop to improve our conscious contact with Story as we understand it, praying only for knowledge of Story, and the power to carry this out.
12. Having had an awakening as the result of these steps, we’ve tried to carry this message to readers and writers everywhere, and to practice these principles in our work.
