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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48071
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

 **This is not a problem, this is an opportunity**. _Great stories are written about insoluble moral conflicts_. The fact that you've created one that you --and the reader --can't immediately and easily resolve means you're doing something right, not something wrong. You've accomplished something many writers never master, you've put real stakes on the table.

Now that you've done that, what are some strategies to get out of this difficulty?

- **Wait and see** : Have you written the rest of the book yet? If not, or if you're on an early draft, why don't you just keep writing, and see if you find an answer when you get there. The writers of the great classic movie _Casablanca_ didn't know how their movie was going to end until the final moments of writing the final draft --a fact that helps give their narrative life.

- **Be ambiguous** : A lot of people hate ambiguous endings, but I love them. Can you end the book after the major story arc has concluded, but before all the loose ends are tied up? For instance, let's say A keeps his vow and sacrifices himself. What happens to character C? We don't know, _and maybe that's ok_.

- **Give it some time** : This is basically the first answer over again, but in the case that you've already written and perfected the entire rest of the book. Put it on a shelf, and just give yourself some time to mull your way to the right ending. I'd argue that the last thing you want to do is go back and rewrite things to give your characters an easy way out. What's going to make this book important to readers is the way it will --eventually --guide them through a dilemma that has some real teeth and bite to it.

Original score: 1