Four stories about how taking a writing class made me a better person

the Moral is optional

Yesterday I watched a lecture about writing. It taught that stories have a beginning, middle, and end. The simplest possible story is:

Beginning: a person

Middle: has a problem

End: and solves it.

(optional)Moral: it doesn’t need to be fancy.

I applied the class material to an event that happened to me in the middle of the night. I don’t know if I’m a better writer, but I know I am a happier person. That’s a lot of power packed into an on demand video! 

Here’s the event as a story:

Beginning: A nursing home patient with a recent hip fracture has Tylenol and goes to sleep. 

Middle: The Tylenol wears off after six hours and she wakes in pain. She has no as needed pain medications.

End: The night nurse calls the on call doctor and gets a one time order for a pain med.

Moral: asking for help works. A system that is well functioning will be able to solve unexpected problems.

Let’s have it from another point of view:

Beginning: An on call nursing home doc is asleep happily.

Middle: The night nurse calls her and asks for a one time pain med order. She gives the order and has a hard time going back to sleep.

End:

Moral: I am tired. 

Prior to having the story architecture explicated so clearly to me, I would have called the second vignette a story, but it is not. There is no end to it. Also, “I am tired” is not a point, moral, or meaning. As a real life sidebar, it also leaves me annoyed and without a clear path forward or anything to do beyond drinking more tea today.

I tried a rewrite for the second story:

Beginning: An on call nursing home doc is asleep happily. 

Middle: The night nurse calls her and asks for a one time pain med order. She gives it and has a hard time going back to sleep.

End: She writes an email to the medical director asking that we develop a policy about Tylenol that is consistent with the fact that it usually only lasts six hours.

Moral: Sometimes better self care and better medical care for my patients line up and I can do something about both.

Looking more closely, one is forced to ask, “how does writing an email solve the problem of not being able to go back to sleep?” It doesn’t. In order for the vignette to be a story, either the problem is not about sleep or the solution was not a solution. 

Attempt #3:

Beginning: An on call nursing home doc is asleep happily. The night nurse calls her and asks for a one time pain med order. 

Middle: She gives it and has a hard time going back to sleep because she is perseverating on how annoyed she is that the person who wrote the admission orders does not understand Tylenol pharmacokinetics.

End: She remembers that some things are under her control and some are not. She reminds herself that other doctors’ knowledge of over the counter medications is not one of the things under her control. She reminds herself that her attitude towards other doctors is one of the things under her control. She thinks of the woman in the nursing home with a fracture and is grateful for her sake that the on call nurse called her for an order. She still can’t go back to sleep, but it’s not a problem because she has used the time to re-arrange her judgments and feels better. She will probably still write that email.

Moral: philosophical principles can help one live a more equanimous life. Reframing can be helpful.

Using the story framework helped me to see that the story I was telling myself was not really a story. Exploring how to make it a story improved my attitude, and thus, my life. Last night, when I could not sleep, I wrote the email in my head and spun uselessly. This morning, I reflected on how to make the vignette a story and I felt better. I woke up feeling annoyed and am now grateful for having another tool. 

That something so basic as “beginning, middle, and end” could help me so quickly is mind blowing! I can’t wait to do the next lesson!