Sarah Caudwell quotes:

...it seems to us that the readers who want fiction to be like life are considerably outnumbered by those who would like life to be like fiction.

One doesn't like to appear vulgarly inquisitive. But if everyone one knows has suddenly started murdering everyone else, it would be terribly nice to know about it.

The trouble with real life is that you don't know whether you're the hero or just some nice chap who gets bumped off in chapter five to show what a rotter the villain is without anyone minding too much.