One of my favorite series of books from the last decade is the "Masters of Rome" series by Colleen McCullough. (Amazon listing for book one here)  Like all good fiction, this six book series contains a compelling, action-packed narrative, exciting plot twists, and much personal and political intrigue involving a large cast of interesting characters.

Oh...did I mention it's not actually fiction?

Based on the history of the Roman Republic starting from the late 2nd century B.C., continuing through the life and death of Julius Caesar, and ending with the defeat of Brutus and Cassius at the hands of the soon-to-be emperor Octavius (the nominal ending point of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Empire), the "Masters of Rome" series covers virtually every major historical event in ancient Roman history over a period of almost a hundred years.  While McCullough has added dialogue and other narrative elements for flow, she didn't have to create the characters, events, or plot points of the book--look up an encyclopedia article on any of the main figures in Roman history, and it could very easily double as the back cover synopsis for any of the books in the series (with major "spoilers" even, if you don't know the history...)

"Truth is stranger than fiction" as the axiom goes, and while the life of any one average person isn't as interesting as the fictional plots cooked up by writers, there are stories and events from any era of civilization throughout human history that are just as interesting as any screenplay.  Colleen McCullough did not need to imagine up a world full of action, romance, and intrigue--the history of the Roman Republic provided that for her.  All she had to do was organize history onto the printed page.

The Book of Mormon is meant to be an ancient record of people living somewhere in the American continent.  Many believers accept it as truth.  Many others--often citing the absence of conclusive scientific evidence to the contrary--insist otherwise that the book has no divine origin.

While small, there is another group of people outside of the first two who have developed a 'have your cake and eat it too' philosophy for the Book of Mormon.  Basically, it does have a divine origin, but is essentially "spiritual fiction": nice stories made up by God to teach us gospel principles and help us become better people...but which have no factual basis.   President Hinckley, among others, has said such an attitude is unreasonable--that you're going to have to pick one side or the other, eventually--but this attitude persists nonetheless.

Here's the problem: saying the Book of Mormon has been divinely inspired by God, yet the stories contained therein have no basis in fact implies that God had no such true stories to draw from to create such scriptures in the first place.

Everyone knows true stories will have more impact than made-up stories--hearing about real people living gospel principles will always be more influential than reading made-up stories about people doing the same thing.   God resorting to fiction to demonstrate gospel principles implies that at no time and in no era of human history were there actual, true stories that demonstrated those same principles.   There was no true story anywhere of an "Alma the Younger" equivalent, who started out opposing the church, but had a change of heart and became a powerful missionary.  There was no true story anywhere of a "Nephi" equivalent--someone who had to sacrifice everything they owned to fulfill a mission from God, even when his family wasn't always in his corner.  There were no faith-promoting stories anywhere in the world of righteous people living gospel principles that the people today could learn from, so God was forced to make some up.

Really?  That's a reasonable theory?  Given the scope of human history, this seems highly unlikely.  Using "The Masters of Rome" series as an example--there's no need to 'make up' stories either to educate or entertain.  Viewing the whole of human history already provides numerous examples of great love stories, great action movies, great character studies of intrigue and betrayal...and spiritual stories as well.   Should we really believe there was not a single example of righteous individuals or societies who believed and lived the gospel in ways that could inspire us today in the early Americas, such that God needed to make some up in order to get His point across? 

In the end, I think we really are left with the two extremes again.  Either the Book of Mormon is a record of actual people who lived the gospel centuries ago, or it is a fraud and has no divine origin at all.   Trying to have it both ways--keeping one foot in the Church and one foot in the secular world without committing to either--is probably just going to result in losing one's balance and falling in one direction or the other anyway...