dealing with promises returned from mongoose - mongodb

Question

This is probably a simple concept to some but an understanding of promises is something that I continue to struggle with...
I have a simple web app that connects to a mongo DB using mongoose and an MVC pattern. I used this tutorial to get up and running but I am not looking to build an API just a back end for my application. I believe interfacing with the controller is where I need some help understanding...
My App structure is as follows
db.congif.js - DB connection managed here
movie.model.js - this is where my object schema is defined
movie.contrller.js - this is where the db operations are written
index.js - main file for my app
Here is the example controller
exports.create = (req, res) => {
// Validate request
if (!req.body.title) {
res.status(400).send({ message: "Content can not be empty!" });
return;
}
// Create a Tutorial
const tutorial = new Tutorial({
title: req.body.title,
description: req.body.description,
published: req.body.published ? req.body.published : false
});
// Save Tutorial in the database
tutorial
.save(tutorial)
.then(data => {
res.send(data);
})
.catch(err => {
res.status(500).send({
message:
err.message || "Some error occurred while creating the Tutorial."
});
});
};
I want to update this to accept an object and return a "response" here begins my lack of understanding
exports.create = (tutorialObject) => {
// Save Tutorial in the database
tutorial
.save(tutorialObject)
.then(data => {
return data;
})
.catch(err => {
return {
message:
err.message || "Some error occurred while creating the Tutorial."
};
});
};
and finally how I am calling this
let dbResponse = tutorial.create(
{
original_title : original_title,
title : title,
poster_path : poster_path
})
So my question... Please help me understand the correct way to code\call this. Is the controller code correct, am I calling it correctly? I am not sure because even though this is working to write records to the DB the dbResponse is always undefined.
The code works to write records to the DB but the response from the controller is undefined. I would expect to have the response be the record that was inserted?