Fifty Shades of hot: She may have used some silly metaphors but E.L. James got her sex scenes oh-so-right in Fifty Shades of Grey

A “stray rocket” has missed its mark and how, fetching its master the inglorious Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Award. This year the crown of thorns of the book world — much like the Razzies of Hollywood — has been thrust on the unwilling head of Nigerian poet and writer Ben Okri for his 10th novel, The Age of Magic.

“When his hand brushed her nipple it tripped a switch and she came alight. He touched her belly and his hand seemed to burn through her.... Adrift on warm currents, no longer of this world, she became aware of him gliding into her. He loved her with gentleness and strength, stroking her neck, praising her face with his hands, till she was broken up and began a low rhythmic wail…. The universe was in her and with each movement it unfolded to her. Somewhere in the night a stray rocket went off.”

The 55-year-old Okri, who won the Booker Prize in 1991 for The Famished Road, hasn’t reacted too kindly: “A writer writes what they write and that’s all there is to it.”

In contrast, last year Indian-American writer Manil Suri, who had won the dishonour for a threesome scene in The City of Devi, had taken it on the chin, saying, “But I feel a real sense of exhilaration at this award — it’s great that readers will now have the chance to decide for themselves.”

This year’s Booker winner Richard Flanagan, too, was on the shortlist for “Hands found flesh; flesh, flesh. He felt the improbable weight of her eyelash with his own; he kissed the slight, rose-coloured trench that remained from her knicker elastic, running around her belly like the equator line circling the world” in his The Narrow Road to the Deep North.

Celebrated Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami couldn’t escape the shortlist either. “Shiro’s were small, but her nipples were as hard as tiny round pebbles. Their pubic hair was as wet as a rain forest,” he wrote in Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.

Bestselling writer Wilbur Smith was nominated for Desert God, that said a woman’s knee-length hair “did not cover her breasts which thrust their way through it like living creatures. They were perfect rounds, white as mare’s milk and tipped with ruby nipples that puckered as my gaze passed over them”.

The Bad Sex award was started in 1993 by British journalist Auberon Waugh with the aim of making authors aware of “poorly written, perfunctory or redundant passages of sexual description in modern fiction and to discourage them”.

Tips to write good sex

A few days before the award was announced, The Daily Telegraph asked erotic romance writer Lily Harlem for tips on how to get it “write” in the sack. According to Harlem, these prestigious authors on the shortlist are overthinking their sex scenes. She has written 30 novels, all of which are driven by themes of sexual desire.

“I go through the whole range from vanilla to really quite dark stuff,” says Harlem. “If it’s a more erotic novel it can get quite kinky with floggers, whips, bondage, ménage à trois. But I’d like to think it’s more engaging than Fifty Shades of Grey, with deeper characters, bigger plot arc, and more conflict.”

When it comes to writing about the physical act, Harlem says that authors shouldn’t be afraid of including practical details. And they should focus on reality, rather than trying to obscure facts in metaphor.

“A lot of writers aren’t confident enough to write about what’s actually happening. They talk about other things like stars exploding above them, rather than talking about how it actually feels and the emotions,” says Harlem. “You need to go into the heads of the characters for realistic emotion, and dialogue as well is so important — people very rarely have sex in silence.”

Above all, Harlem says to avoid clichés. “They’re alright in dialogue, because we do talk in clichés, but you wouldn’t want to put in details about a ‘throbbing manhood’. Keep it real and write a fresh description — to do that you need a vivid location and characters.”

Lily Harlem is a pen name, and the author says that keeping her identity secret helps to keep her writing honest. She’d rather her family didn’t read her work and wouldn’t want to be worried about other people’s reactions.

“I don’t want to be hindered when I write, thinking that so-and-so will read this. I’m passionate about my writing, I write even while on holiday and find it quite addictive. I don’t want anything to steal that,” she says.

writer akhil sharma tells t2 about his family life & more

Indian-American writer Akhil Sharma is the author of two critically acclaimed novels — An Obedient Father (2001) and Family Life (2014). The second is the story of a young boy from India growing up in America with an elder brother paralysed in a swimming pool accident, which mirrors Sharma’s own family story. t2 caught up with the 43-year-old over email when he was in India to attend the Tata Literature Live festival in Mumbai recently.

How would you introduce your latest book to a reader?

A book about how much parents are willing to sacrifice for their children and what the consequences are from such sacrifice.

What made you write about your own family in Family Life? Were you looking for a catharsis?

All writers write about their families. These are the people who are most important to us. I was hoping that the book would help people who have been in similar situations and also help people prepare for when they enter such situations.

Why did you choose fiction and not an autobiography to tell the story about your unique family?

I find that non-fiction keeps me from using dialogue and other technical things which are an essential part of how I know to tell stories. I also felt that if I wrote a memoir I would have to write about aspects of what happened which don’t interest me but are important.

Do you feel there’s an unrealistic expectation from caregivers within the family, especially mothers, in Indian society?

I think in almost all societies people are forced to care for sick family members. This work is incredibly difficult and does traumatise the caregiver. Among Indians there is a feeling that we should not complain or express the difficulties we experience. To me this isn’t fair.

Jhumpa Lahiri doesn’t like to call her writing “immigrant literature”. But you’ve said in previous interviews that you’d place your book in that genre....

My book belongs in that genre in the same way that it belongs in the genre of illness works or coming-of-age works. Most good books can be read for multiple reasons.

The America you grew up in doesn’t seem like a welcoming place. Has that changed?

America has changed a great deal. You find that intermarriage is much more common than it used to be.

What kind of books did you read while growing up?

Mostly science fiction and then, after the 10th grade, mostly the classics.

Any recent book you’ve read and loved and would recommend to our readers?

I would suggest Zia Haider Rahman’s In the Light of What We Know. To me Zia is a modern Conrad.

Family Life took you 12 years to write. Have you started on your next project?

I am working on a collection of short stories.

Samhita Chakraborty