I’m reading, among other books, Alice Walker’s The Color Purple.

And in a passage I just read I came across the clearest example of the power of showing instead of telling. One of the main characters in the book, a strong woman names Sofia, is leaving her husband to go stay with her sister. The man, Harpo, is saddened by this but Alice Walker doesn’t tell us he’s sad; she shows us.

Harpo sit on the steps acting like he don’t care. He making a net for seining fish. He look out toward the creek every once in a while and whistle a little tune. But it nothing compared to the way he usually whistle. His little whistle sound like it lost way down in a jar, and the jar at the bottom of the creek.

What’s the best writing you came across recently?