Most writers, aspiring writers certainly, would dismiss bad books. There is no reason to read them let alone try and draw any lessons or inspiration from them. Counterintuitive though it may be, bad books are a useful source, even a better guide on the craft of writing than a reading list comprised of only the good, great, classic and contemporary writing.

The reason why bad books are worth the time and instructive, lies in their failings, the gaps the whys and the various how not to dos of such books. Such weaknesses give the reader, especially an attentive writer, the chance to fill in the mistake, to ask why that part did not succeed, what if it had been done differently. The bad, unsure and laughable may consist of any part of a book: from a character, to a mood, to a passage of writing, in particular a key romantic moment, which often delivers embarrassing paragraphs: either too much detail, or too much euphemism. These can be clumsy grammatically or unmusical, just sticky lumpen words that should have been edited. Such elements provide material to use as points of reference, to work against if needs be.

Bad books may be divided into two categories: the instructively bad which offer insights into writing by their errors; and secondly, the irredeemably bad book which is the linguistic equivalent of trans fat. If they are in the first category, bad books come in many forms: those that are poor technically; morally weak and much artistic criticism is a moral critique about one’s choices or options compared to another writer’s. There may be badly executed elements, such as dialogue, character (s) coincidence, cliché, plot devices (realistic or not?). These are all the parts that make a bad film so much fun – but in print are irritating and not funny.

Unfortunately bad books, unlike bad movies, are not much loved, their perverted pleasure is not communal and their terrible dialogue cannot be recited to amused friends. No, bad books are considered a waste of time. They have cheated the reader of time that might have been devoted to a good work. The author of the bad book is reviled unlike the bad movie director who can achieve cult status exactly because of the low production value.

But bad books can also help a writer realise what they are aiming for, or wish to be, by understanding what they are not. Difficulty in setting style or finding the so-called ‘voice’ is part of that larger process. It is done by selection in comparison with the ranges of available styles that a writer may choose, even subconsciously to enter. The blank page and unrealised stories are symptom of unreadiness which bad books can help to overcome.

It’s about projections by the writer and their choices. During a long period of idleness Samuel Beckett read a large portion of the English canon and decided it was banal, superficial. Not all the books he read were bad, some are considered the heights of the craft, just over loved by devotees of teashops and crinoline, but in the process Beckett found a compass: what he would be as a writer, by what he would not be: joining the English novel narrative.

Sometimes it may be styles or familiar patterns as used by a writer that are bad. This is how Marcel Proust assessed Flaubert. One of the best pieces on writing by one writer about another is Proust’s essay on Flaubert. In it Proust says Flaubert does not possess a strong use of metaphor, amongst many things, he says Flaubert’s main virtue is grammatical which seems mean spirited. But it is instructive, an insight, which may be taken, adapted as the time comes with the progress of your own book.

Apart from keeping up with the Miles Franklin and Booker prize winners, find the time to occasionally leaf through half a dozen pages of a bad book and use it well. Take something from its defects: groan, laugh and feel smugly superior that your own sentences and paragraphs would never fail as badly. Why not, every other writer has done so.

Guy Cranswick is a Sydney-based writer and winner or the Sminkworks Peace Inside, Peace Outside short story competition. He is also the author of the novel, My Wife, My Job, My Shoes.