Pretense

We have discussed throughout much of this week has been about a pretense to approaching fiction, in which we either are aware of the author's intention or the text's function (i.e as a prop). But what exactly does this pretense entail? Is it an explicit statement made by a parent or educator that says "This story is not real and thus you should not take is to be so"? Or is a connotative assumption we make when first being introduced to a text in which we can determine it to be fiction? If so what are those assumptions based on? Style and form or on the chracters and settings? I am unsure of when I was taught such a pretense, but yet I am conciously aware that when I select something from the fiction section of the library, I should not anticipate finding a text which reflects an actual state of affairs in the material world. I wanted hear your thoughts on what this pretense would look like and it affects our conception of fiction.