One of my favorite sayings is “No life is ever wasted: You can always serve as a bad example.” Of course as an author, replacing “life” with “book” works as well.

Nothing is more disruptive to enjoying a story than being thrown out of it for some reason. This can occur due to the usual suspects like typos and misused words, an inconsistency such as an eye-color change, losing track of who is speaking, poor scene transitions, viewpoint character unclear, and so forth.

When this happens, put it to good use. If something throws you out of a story, stop long enough to figure out why. Then make sure you’re not guilty of the same thing. You can learn from all writers, whether more or less skilled than you are.