I find this idea of off-screen storytelling fascinating and I've never heard it explicitly expressed like this. This thread has really taught me and made me think, so thanks. One additional thought I had was that it seems important that the off-screen stories work because the possibility of them - the potential HOW - has been well set up so that we believe it could happen. If we didn't know what Erik is capable of, then we would probably want to see him kill the 2 policemen, so that we weren't jarred by our hesitation to believe he could do that. Similarly, we know Hanna can get to Berlin, so we smile smugly to ourselves about how good she is at that stuff. If Sophie suddenly appeared at the Grimm house on the other hand, we'd pull a WTF face at the screen. So... when choosing which action can be left off-screen, one question has to be whether we have set it up enough that the audience can fill in the blanks sufficiently, without a big dose of disbelief.

That is absolutely right, MrsJingles: We have to believe the characters are capable of doing something in order to believe that they have done it off screen. Otherwise it would smack of what I call 'writers convenience' - that is the writer manipulated the plot for their own ease, rather than arising naturally from the will, desire and potential of the characters. Mind you, as with all aspects of writing, we have to be judicious in our use of off screen storytelling. Too much of it, then you may be missing out on some good visual narrative material and end up giving the reader the impression that the more interesting story is happening off screen. But it is something we can do because audiences nowadays do seem to want to see the story move along and they don't seem to require as much exposition or connect-the-dots visuals as they used to. They can make the jump from here to there without necessarily SEEING it on screen, but as noted, the motivation and capability of the characters along with the opportunity must be set in place for that to work. Glad to see the idea resonated with you!