The best historical fiction puts characters in situations where every choice is wrong. I’ve been wrestling with this challenge in my alternative history fiction, not because I enjoy torturing my characters (okay, maybe a little), but because that’s what the colonial frontier demands. When survival is uncertain and communities are small, clean moral choices become impossible luxuries.

The Historical Reality

Colonial America was a pressure cooker of competing loyalties.

You might hate the British but need their protection. You might sympathize with Native Americans but have family killed in raids. You might believe in independence but have a sick child who needs medicine only loyalists can provide.

The frontier especially didn’t allow for ideological purity. When survival is uncertain, principles become luxuries.

I discovered this reading about Pontiac’s Rebellion. Colonists who despised British rule suddenly begged for British troops. Native American tribes with centuries of rivalry united against common threats. Nobody got to stand on moral high ground when their families were at risk.

These weren’t betrayals. They were impossible choices.

Creating Authentic Dilemmas

The key is making both options genuinely terrible.

Too often, writers create false dilemmas where one choice is clearly right. That’s not an impossible choice. That’s just a test of courage.

Real impossible choices have no good options. Save your family or save your community. Honor your word or protect the innocent. Stay true to your cause or prevent a massacre.

Both choices must have merit. Both must have unbearable costs.

The Personal Stakes

Impossible choices only work when they’re deeply personal.

Abstract principles don’t create gut-wrenching drama. “Freedom vs. tyranny” is a philosophy debate. “Save your brother or save your neighbors” is an impossible choice. Think Batman in The Dark Knight.

The colonial period offers rich ground for these personal stakes. Extended families split by political divisions. Communities where everyone knows everyone. Small populations where every death matters.

I spend time building these relationships before the impossible choice arrives. Readers need to feel the weight of what’s at stake.

Avoiding Modern Judgment

This is the hardest part.

We want to judge historical characters by modern standards. We want them to make the “right” choice by our values.

But that’s not honest historical fiction.

A colonial character facing an impossible choice is operating under different assumptions. Different values. Different understandings of the world. Their moral universe isn’t ours.

My job is to make readers understand why a character makes a choice we might find abhorrent. Not agree with it. Understand it.

The Aftermath

The choice itself is only half the story.

How does a character live with an impossible decision? In the colonial period, you couldn’t just move away and start over. Communities were small. Memories were long. The consequences of your choices followed you.

I’ve found the aftermath often reveals more about character than the choice itself. Do they justify? Regret? Try to atone? Accept the cost?

There’s no psychological counseling in 1763. No support groups. Just you and your conscience and a community that judges.

Why This Matters

Impossible choices reveal the human condition.

In our modern world, we like to think we’d always do the right thing. Historical fiction reminds us that sometimes there is no right thing. Sometimes there are only degrees of wrong.

The colonial period strips away our comfortable certainties. It forces characters and readers to confront what they’d actually do when survival is uncertain and every choice costs blood.

That’s the story I’m trying to tell. Not heroes and villains, but people facing impossible choices with no good answers.

And honestly? I’m still figuring out how to do it well.