I've had my current book in mind for about five years but could never make a start on it because I could not bring myself to choose between writing it as an historical novel or writing it as a work of creative nonfiction. The protagonist of the book is my great-grandmother Jessie and I've done years of research on her and her family. The genealogist in me wanted to go the creative nonfiction route but as I drafted my first chapters I finally realized that her story needed the historical novel approach (although I'm staying true to the facts and the history) or there were parts of it I simply wouldn't be able to tell. I'm only about 6k words into this book, but I finally find myself happy with what I'm writing. Writing fiction is a first for me (all my previous works have been nonfiction) but I'm finding it an interesting challenge. Has anyone else struggled with this decision? What did you choose and why?