Covert Establishments

To expand upon my last post, (which ironically has to do with over-explaining) I put forth this establishment, if only to cement things in my own mind. What is NOT written is just as important as what is. While I'm doing everything I can to avoid exhaustive explanations, I believe it's important for me to understand the ins and outs of everything within the story. I should have an answer to every reasonable question, even if that question is never asked. By establishing the world and everything in it as best I can, I'll have a much greater command of the narrative and direction. But this is, and very well should be, a most covert operation. The reader does not need to know everything about everything. I find novels that focus too heavily on lore dumping to be tedious. It's admirable that the writer went through so much worldbuilding, but respectfully, (and as a writer) I don't want to hear about it in massive blocks of text. (I'll admit, I tried to read Dune three times and I never could get into it.) The details need to come up naturally, and if they don't, then they aren't important to the story. I am absolutely convinced that this is one of the biggest reasons why Tolkien's work is so prolific. Everything from the history of the world to the development of races and the establishment of good and evil entities were fully fleshed out. An entire language was built, to boot, which shows the kind of dedication to a work that very few modern writers are even capable of comprehending. But none of that raw information was directly communicated to the reader in an unnatural way. It was pieced together, in context, and by the end of the main trilogy, there was so much lore that wasn't explained in the novels. But the novels weren't poorer for it. Now, I'm not saying that every fantasy writer needs to pen their own "The Silmarillion", (don't temp me) but having all of that rich information to build on manifests itself in a novel, whether it's directly acknowledged or not. Having well established lore is akin to electronics in appliances: it makes it all work, but the reader only sees the buttons. Of course, it's possible that I might have a bit too much lore, which makes it more difficult to resist spewing unwanted information on the page. But this is the other side of the coin when it comes to over-explaining. The reader doesn't need to know everything, but the writer should know EVERYTHING. And for whatever I don't know, I should be able to find an answer, even if that answer will never be known outside of my own mind. And thus, as it so commonly goes, that which acts as a powerful binding force, goes unseen and unsung.