Note there is here - among other things, an interesting class of the anticipations (hopes, expectations, beliefs, faiths, bets) people have about their futures, and about their feelings if so and so were (not) the case, or (not) to be.

In this sense there is much more fiction in what motivates and orientates people in their everyday acting and believing then they tend to suppose, at least concerning themselves and their associates.

Also, fiction - propaganda, faith, advertisment - is often effective. And people tend to believe heir own fictions about themselves, knowing considerable parts of these are make-belief, pretense, role, pose, hypocrisy, convenience, wishful thinking or acting as if or otherwise unreal while practically effective.

It takes some faith to believe in oneself, even if it is only in the effectiveness of one's usual deceptions and evasions. Every person is to some extent real and to some extent fiction, and one may know (or not) this in various degrees.