Maggie O’Farrell

And even though I was a really long way from being a writer and a mother, I knew that it was significant.

I knew that nobody would casually give the name of their dead son to a play and a prince and a ghost, that it had to mean something.

Yeah.

Depends who's wielding the axe.

I think it's a mixture of both.

And I do think, I think sex scenes are tricky.

They are hard because you don't want to make it cringy and you can't, I always think you can't be too medical about it, you know, and I don't believe in using kind of euphemisms like manhood or

you know those are the worst and the most cringe things so you've got to avoid that but you've also got to avoid the kind of word that a doctor might use you know because that just no one wants to hear vagina used or vulva in a sex scene yeah it's just it's just not it's just not quite there so it's got to be and you don't want to be too metaphorical and too kind of wimpish about it so it's tricky it's a fine line to draw and you have to think about it really carefully

My son told me when he was a teenager, his friends used to, two of them would pin him down and another one of them would read aloud the sex scenes that I'd written.

I mean, poor lad.

I know, isn't that just the worst thing you've ever heard?

I said to him, I'm so sorry.

So sorry that I feel like it's my fault that that's happened to you.

But he's fine.

As far as I know.

It could be.

I know, exactly.

It could be.

So, yeah, I hope.

I hope I haven't damaged him for life.