There even are places where English completely disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years! Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?
I need to tell the things that are important but which don't make sense in terms of the narrative, things that would destroy symmetry or narrative pace. This is my personal belief about what it means to write nonfiction.
I have no idea who the characters are, later, their personalities take over anything I might want to do. I end up writing not from my own will, but from theirs-they come alive as I write and make me do things that I couldn't have planned.
Now the writer, I think, has the chance to live more than other people in the presence of ... reality. It is his business to find it and collect it and communicate it to the rest of us.
If you know somebody is going to be awfully annoyed by something you write, that's obviously very satisfying, and if they howl with rage or cry, that's honey.