Avoid callbackHell with mongoose

I'm starting with node mongoose etc... I'm a good student and so I follow the doc : http://mongoosejs.com/docs/populate.html .

After a while using this syntax I ended up with the infamous callback hell. After reading a lot about how to avoid this situation I decided to go for the promise way ^^. Also async module is really tempting but I don't know if it's suited for what I want to achieve.

I just want to save an object with all the corresponding refs. According to the doc we have :

    var mongoose = require('mongoose')
  , Schema = mongoose.Schema

var personSchema = Schema({
  _id     : Number,
  name    : String,
  age     : Number,
  stories : [{ type: Schema.Types.ObjectId, ref: 'Story' }]
});

var storySchema = Schema({
  _creator : { type: Number, ref: 'Person' },
  title    : String,
  fans     : [{ type: Number, ref: 'Person' }]
});

var Story  = mongoose.model('Story', storySchema);
var Person = mongoose.model('Person', personSchema);

And for saving ref I use : 

var aaron = new Person({ _id: 0, name: 'Aaron', age: 100 });

aaron.save(function (err) {
  if (err) return handleError(err);

  var story1 = new Story({
    title: "Once upon a timex.",
    _creator: aaron._id    // assign the _id from the person
  });

  story1.save(function (err) {
    if (err) return handleError(err);
    aaron.stories.push(story1); // I added those two lines
    aaron.save(callback); // in order to save the refs to children
    // thats it!
  });
})

How can I achieve the same thing using promises the proper way ? or maybe Async is more suited ? I'm lost help ?

TBH is super verbose not sure if there is a shorter way to deal with this

Try this? (may not be syntactically exact.. typed on fly)

var save = function(aaron){ 
   return new RSVP.Promise(function(resolve, reject){
     aaron.save(function(err){
      if(err){
        reject(err); 
      }else{
        resolve(aaron);
      }
     });
   });
};

var addStory = function(aaron{
  return new RSVP.Promise(function(resolve, reject){
     var story1 = new Story({
      title: "Once upon a timex.",
      _creator: aaron._id    // assign the _id from the person
     });
     story1.save(function(err){
      if(err){
        reject(err);
      }else{
        resolve(story1, arron);
      }
     });
  });
};

//then to exec the promises
save(arron).then(function(arron){
 addStory(arron);
}).then(function(story1, arron)){
  // tell the story?
}).catch(function(err){
    handleError(err);
});

EDIT

This should make it short

var saves = function(objToSave){
  return new RSVP.Promise(function(resolve, reject){
    objToSave.save(function(err){
      if(err){
        reject(err);
      }else{
        resolve(objToSave);
      }
   })
  });
}

var _scope = this;
saves(arron).then(function(arron){
   var story1 = new Story({
     title: "Once upon a timex.",
     _creator: aaron._id    // assign the _id from the person
   });

  _scope.saves(story1)
}).then(function(story1){
  //do something with the story
}).catch(function(err){
  handleError(err);
});

Here is another example of how you could do it with promises:

function save(obj) {
    return new Promise(function (resolve, reject) {
        obj.save(function (err) {
            if (err) {
                reject(err);
            } else {
                resolve(obj);
            }
        });
    });
}

var aaron = new Person({ _id: 0, name: 'Aaron', age: 100 });

save(aaron).then(function (savedAaron) {
    var story1 = new Story({
        title: 'Once upon a timex.',
        _creator: savedAaron._id
    });
    save(story1).then(function (savedStory) {
        aaron.stories.push(savedStory);
        aaron.save(callback);
    }, function (err) {
        handleError(err);
    });
}, function (err) {
    handleError(err);
});

I recommend reading this article on promises: http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/es6/promises/