Russian Lit and What it Showed Me

I, as I think most writers do, contemplate showing and telling a lot. Sometimes it feels like the line between the two is very thin, and I often can't tell which one I'm doing in my own writing.

This, of course, is a problem. A story can't be all telling, but it also can't be all showing, and balancing the two is tricky enough as it is without being unable to determine which is which in your manuscript.

So, as I am prone to do, I stumbled upon a perfect example of showing in a book I was reading. More specifically, in The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky. (Which I was reading for my Russian Lit class, so, thanks Russian Lit!)

"Here is perhaps the one man in the world whom you might leave alone without a penny, in the centre of an unknown town of a million inhabitants, and he would not come to harm, he would not die of cold and hunger, for he would be fed and sheltered at once; and if he were not, he would find a shelter for himself, and it would cost him no effort or humiliation. And to shelter him would be no burden, but, on the contrary, would probably be looked on as a pleasure."

What do we know about the character being described from that paragraph?

He's resourceful. Friendly and outgoing. He's motivated and strong willed. He wins people over, and quickly.

But more than that, I have an actual sense of who this man is that I could never get from that list of adjectives I just put together. Dostoevsky showed me who this character was.

Also, he showed me how to show, not tell. Now I can comb through my manuscript and try to perfect the balance.