“How come quality doesn’t really sell?” I say.
I’m not sure Nige has heard me, since he continues frowning at the three pints of lager lined up before him in a dead straight row. He’s not feeling comfortable, I know, since I insisted we sit at a table tonight, instead of his preferred position, leaning at the bar. I think he believes that the bar offers some protection against possible public criticism of his drinking methods. Which is, essentially, to wait until it’s almost closing time, then down all three pints in a minute or two, thereby, I suspect, feeling he’s had a really good night out. That and receiving a hefty alcohol kick. Three pints on the bar might just comprise two that the barman has temporarily placed there for other customers. In a dead straight row.
But my legs are aching from cycling to work most of this week and I need to sit.
“Because, Tel,” he says eventually, pushing the base of one of the glasses slightly, straightening the straightness of the line. “The extra time, money and sheer bleedin’ effort required to make something a hundred per cent good is disproportionate to what’s needed to make it eighty per cent good.”
“You sound like you’re quoting from an instruction manual.”
He looks up. “I am. But it’s one that ain’t never been published.” He taps the side of his head. “Every builder has it burnt into his brain cells. These days, you learn the hard way through experience, but in ancient times, apprentices would be brainwashed at a very early stage by their masters. A young, keen guy would for instance take ages making sure he got some door painted perfect: no brush strokes showing, nice even application. But the gaffer would say, ‘No, no, no; you have to do it like this.’ And he’d show him how to paint it much faster. If the apprentice was conscientious, he’d notice that the final quality of the gaffer’s work weren’t actually as good as his own.”
He stops speaking, nods at me knowingly, waiting for me to put the pieces of his quality puzzle together.
Fact is, he and I know that I’ve raised this subject in relation to writing. And lately I’ve been trying to figure out a certain mystery where authors are concerned.
“I’ve been on writing workshops,” I say, “where we studied passages by highly commercial authors that were brilliantly written. But then I’d take a book by one of them, open it randomly and most of the time the writing was at best functional, rarely anywhere near as brilliant as the passage we studied.”
“Sometimes I paint a door perfect just because I want to,” he says. “And to remind meself that I can. But I ain’t going to make a living if I don’t keep to the eighty per cent rule.”
“But don’t your clients notice?”
“People that settle for eighty per cent aren’t clients; they’re punters. Sometimes I get a client and he gets a hundred per cent. But the cost of that extra twenty per cent is a whole wallop more.”
“But why would anyone settle for eighty per cent?”
“Because it’s still thirty per cent better than they can do themselves. And because they believe us professionals know what we’re doing. Which we do. We just don’t always do what we know we can do.”
What he says makes sense, even applied to writing. Commercial writers produce a lot of writing. Practicality says they’ll do better aiming at eighty per cent, not a hundred. After all, novels aren’t priced according to the quality of the writing; they’re all costed pretty much the same.
“But hold on a minute,” I say. “I understand that your clients – punters – might turn a blind eye to the quality of your painting not being a hundred per cent because they know that would cost them a lot more. But why would a reader settle for eighty per cent when they could get a hundred for the same price?”
Nige glances at the clock above the door. Three minutes to drinking up time. He reaches for the first pint and I realise he’s going to be distracted now by the need to concentrate on producing a one hundred per cent performance in downing nearly half a gallon of carbonated liquid in the time it would take a normal drinker to go for a pee.
But then an unprecedented event takes place. Nige withdraws his hand, sits back, folds his arms.
“You got me there, Tel,” he says. “What do you think?”
While I’m thinking, tradition grabs him once again and he reaches for the first glass, then sinks the contents in one visit. I’m fascinated by the rhythmic waves of amber in the lager pushing back from the opening and closing of his throat.
“Maybe it’s the unwillingness to pay a different kind of cost,” I say. “Your clients don’t want to spend money. Perhaps readers don’t want to spend too much effort on what they read. You don’t have to think about an eighty per cent book. It’s going to get the job done, on time, without any complications. But a hundred per cent could mean getting more involved; making a contribution.”
“Which ain’t giving ’em what they want, is it?” he says, between putting down the first glass and reaching for the second.
“So, if you’re aiming for a hundred per cent,” I say, “maybe you need to convince your readers that the extra effort is worth it.”
I wait until he puts down the second glass, with surprising delicacy as it happens.
“Fortunately,” he says, “that ain’t a problem we gentlemen builder/decorators have to meditate on. It’s one for you conflicted artists to sort out.”
He’s right. And I don’t know the answer right now. But I do believe it’s a question that’s worth struggling with.
Nige finishes his third pint and I can tell by the expression on his face that he’s struggling with an eternal question of his own: whether to have a slash in the pub now or risk carrying a full bladder all the way home.