Strange topic here today, folks, but stay with me a minute. I’ve been editing the last 50 pages of my 11th novel in manuscript format this afternoon, and I’ve come to realize that an essential skill expert writers must have is an ability to recognize tiny shifts of poor judgment in prose style.

The truth is there are so many skills a writer must have to write “expert” level professional-grade prose that it’s almost beyond the scope of discussion, but one thing we’ve all heard published authors say is that you have to read a lot.

They’re right. You do have to read a lot if you want to be a great writer.

But the point I’d like to make today is that not only do you have to read a lot. Not only do you have a near-encyclopedic knowledge of yours and other genres. But you need to read a lot of so-called “bad” writing, too.

And not just a narrow tunnel vision of bad writing… which is what happens to a lot of writing professors I’m afraid. But a wide age range, gender range, ethnicity, social class, and geopolitical range of bad writing.

I suspect a lot of literary agents who truly want to become writers (or editors who end up becoming writers) learn this as well as anybody.

Just as Simon on American Idol knows within ten seconds whether a singer has the right stuff, you as a reader have to have a similar depth of knowledge and ready-quick skill to be able to recognize objectively what works and doesn’t work.

If all you read is published writing, published novels, or books within your genre, you’re missing out on an education that could be realized if you read a lot of self-published work. The range of self-published writing is as diverse as society itself and it’s probably the best pool of work you could invest yourself in, aside from the genre and style of pro writers in your niche itself.

Some self-published writing is extraordinarily good. Some of it is just a few shades off of what it takes to earn a major book contract. Much of it is sub-par but coherent and readable. You will learn more about good writing from reading bad writing than you ever will by reading good writing alone.

It reminds me of something Martin Scorsese says in his “Personal Journey through American Movies.” I’m paraphrasing here, but his thesis is that he (Scorsese) learned far more from watching “B”-grade pictures than from the films that won awards. The depth of knowledge, the range of color, and diversity of voices in the world is so much more vivid among the struggling artists, the intermediate and novice among us.

The key is to master it all, and take what would ordinarily be ugly, ridiculed and laughed at and turn it into something completely realized and original.

This may take you a lifetime to do well.

Stacey