: What are methods to refer to something that happened but did not make it onto the page? As writers we're supposed to know more about our stories than the words that make it onto the page.

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Great question. I've been using this technique in my new book (after recommending it frequently here), and it can be a real temptation to try to stuff worldbuilding details into the text. The whole utility of it, however, is to allow connections to happen naturally, and thus imply a whole, coherent, expansive universe offstage.

So, for your example, you know from your worldbuilding that Betty's mom liked the mailman. So it would be a natural thing for Betty to mention to the mailman when she sees him. You don't need to shoehorn in a scene of Betty's mom talking about the mailman --that defeats the whole point. But you also don't want to make Betty say it just so you can use it. That also defeats the point. (And you definitely don't want to have her first think it and then immediately say it!) What you want is to just have that available to draw on if Betty should have the need to make smalltalk with the mailman. Otherwise, you might get to that point in the story, and flail around, or come up with something more clunky.

In my current writing, I've learned that unexpected dialog, details, and entire subplots have opened up when I've needed them, all because of that prior worldbuilding (did Betty's mom have an affair with the mailman, perhaps?). But there still remain plenty of worldbuilding "facts" that won't be in the final book at all. So, to summarize, not only can a character refer to something offstage, that capacity is really the whole point of offstage worldbuilding.

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