He said, "Don, when something hard happens to you, you have two choices in how to deal with it. You can either get bitter, or better. I chose to get better. It's made all the difference.

I kept imagining these people, just living their daily lives, and then having them suddenly ended in unjust tragedy. When we watch the news, we grieve all of this, but when we go to the movies, we want more of it. Somehow we realize that great stories are told in conflict, but we are unwilling to embrace the potential greatness of the story we are actually in. We think God is unjust, rather than a master storyteller.

Pain then, if one could have faith in something greater than himself, might be a path to experiencing a meaning beyond the false gratification of personal comfort.

Characters only take action after they are challenged by an outside force.

Pain can serve a purpose if we cause it to. Again, while we do not have power over all that happens in the world, we do have power over our perspective. We can choose to take unfair and undue pain and cause it to serve our own story so that we become better. So that we transform.

In stories, the external problem is often a physical, tangible problem the hero must overcome in order to save the day.

Most of us struggle with the opposite. We don't bring up the negative stakes enough and so the story we're telling falls flat. Remember, if there are no stakes, there is no story.

If we begin our day believing life is supposed to be easy, we will certainly have a terrible day. Life is not easy, nor was it ever supposed to be.

And stories are all about conflict.

Suffering, as absurd as it seemed, pointed to a greater story in which, if one would only construe himself as a character within, he could find fulfillment in his tragic role, knowing the plot was heading toward redemption.

Every conflict, no matter how hard, comes back to bless the protagonist if he will face his fate with courage. There is no conflict man can endure that will not produce a blessing. And I smiled. I'm not saying I was happy, but for some reason I smiled. It hurts now, but I'll love this memory, I thought to myself. And I do.

Once an ambition has been decided, a positive turn is an event that moves the protagonist closer to the ambition, and a negative turn moves the protagonist away from his ambition.