Why write fiction?

I can't speak for other fiction writers, but speaking for myself:

i) I've seen or read countless stories in my lifetime. Most of them from movies or episodes in TV dramas. Former generations got stories from an oral culture, or novels and plays. But in modernity, film and television are the mass medium for stories–although there are literary types who primarily consume highbrow novels and plays. And for boys, comic books are another source. 

When you're exposed to so many stories, it makes you curious to try your own hand at the medium. If so many other people are storytellers, maybe you have a knack for it, too. Or maybe you don't. There's only one way to find out. 

ii) While it's enjoyable to read or see someone else's stories, especially if it's well-done, nevertheless, you're just a spectator. When you read their story or watch their movie, they make all the creative choice for you. Which is fine. But in addition to that, you may have a hankering to make your own creative choices rather than having it all decided by someone else. Up to a point it's fine to be the passive recipient, but there are times when you'd like to make your own creative decisions. Indeed, seeing them do it is a stimulus for you to give it a go. 

iii) Apropos (ii), sometimes, when I watch a movie or TV drama, it contains a promising idea, but after I've seen it I take it in a different direction in my imagination. I can play filmmaker in the private movie studio of my mind, and edit someone else's movie, or provide an alternate ending that's more to my liking. Maybe the film had a striking idea, an interesting dramatic premise, but I don't think it was developed to its full potential. It leaves me dissatisfied, but there's enough to it that I run with it. 

iv) In the real world, we must take reality as it comes to us–the good and the bad, interesting and boring, fulfilling and disappointing. In fiction we have the freedom to be selective. We can isolate the things we like, extend them, and reconnect them with other things we like. It's like designing your own world, where you're in control of all the variables. In the real world we have to rush when we'd rather linger and savor the moment–or, conversely, slog through the tedium to get to something enjoyable. But a fiction writer can linger over a scene he likes, as well as skipping over stuff that doesn't interest him.

Mind you, these need to be balanced. Consider the stereotype of the guy who spends all his leisure time playing video games. He needs more reality, not less. 

v) Fiction is a way to interpret experience. What makes life meaningful? What's important in life? Fiction is a sorting process. Because life is a gift, we have a duty to reflect on the value of life, not just take it for granted and fritter away the allotted time. Fiction is an effort to achieve understanding. There's experience in the raw, then there's the significance of what we experience. 

vi) Finally, when I'm out on a walk, sometimes a story idea just comes to me unbidden. I wasn't planning to write a story. I don't do it for any deeper reason than the fact that I suddenly have an idea for another story.