Where is all the fiction?
Why is no-one writing fiction set here?
There has been a hiatus in my posts as I’ve been away on holiday and have taken a deliberate break from writing. But not from thinking about writing and developing my ideas about writing the landscape of the Isle of Axholme.  We spent a week in a cottage between Cambridge and Ely, in the fens. As we drove around, particularly when heading north towards Ely, I was struck by how similar the landscape was to that of my home county. The same vast skies, low lying fields separated by ditches, few trees and largely arable farmland. It was almost disconcertingly familiar – as though I hadn’t left northern Lincolnshire at all.
Of course, the two landscapes do have many historical similarities. Both are low lying areas pf what was once marsh and fenland, subjected to successive drainage projects over centuries, notably that of Cornelius Vermuyden and his Dutch in the 17th Century. They are landscapes which have been completely transformed by human intervention and are now what many people might consider featureless prairies given over to cereal and vegetable production in vast, hedge less fields. But I have an affinity with these landscapes of big skies and vast horizons. They give me a sense of expansiveness and freedom which hill country denies.
One difference I did discover is in the literature of the two places – the flatlands of Cambridgeshire and of north Lincolnshire. A quick internet search of ‘fiction set in the Fens’ produced the following:
The Quayside Poet: A Fenland Mystery and In the Wash: A Fenland Mystery set in the time of King John, both by Doane Calton-Smith
Death of an Expert Witness by PD James
Flight of the Mallard: A Fenland Adventure by Rosemary ayes and Edmund Blake
Crime on the Fens, Shadow over the Fens, Graves on the Fens by Joy Ellis
Fen Country by Edmund Crispin
Waterland by Graham Swift
Anne of the Fens by Gretchen GibbsBottom of Form
Murder in the Fens by Clare Chase
This list is by no means exhaustive. And all these books are set in the Cambridgeshire or south Lincolnshire fenlands.
When I searched for novels in which the landscape of northern Lincolnshire or the Isle of Axholme is integral I found:
Manuscript in a Red Box and Captain John Lister by John Hamilton
Lincolnshire Tales by Mabel Peacock
The Settlers by Harriet Martineau.
And that as far as I can see is that. The most recent was published in 1906. I am very happy to hear of other fictional accounts set in the area but these are what I have been able to find. Nell Pattison is writing excellent novels set in North Lincolnshire but these are not the landscape driven fiction produced in the southern fens.
Which has got me to wondering why the landscape which I find so inspiring and evocative hasn’t produced more fiction? I attended a talk by Alan Johnson, former politician, and he spoke about his idea to set a novel in the Isle set in the 17th Century and the tumult caused by  the drainage of the Isle. His publishers apparently weren’t grabbed by the idea at the time and suggested he put it on the back burner. Obviously the Isle of Axholme isn’t a setting they think would sell books.
So, what might be some of the reasons for this dearth of landscape based fiction in this area? Is it simply that Cambridge is a centre of creative and academic endeavour and fiction writing feeds on that? Is it that more people live in the fenland areas further south?
I was reading a collection of folktales set in the north Lincolnshire Carrs and the author MC Balfour refers to the north of the county being the most remote area of a remote county. Is it that this is a marginal region, scythed across by the M180 motorway which destroyed the great house of Temple Belwood, setting for the most famous Axholme story, Manuscript in a Black Box? (Though fame is a relative term). Is it that the main town of Scunthorpe just isn’t very evocative in most people’s minds?
I don’t believe the people of northern Lincolnshire are less creative than their counterparts further south but maybe they are less confident in their creativity. Perhaps they don’t feel as connected to their landscape or feel it isn’t ‘worthy’ enough to be written about.
I am meeting with a creative writing group from Scunthorpe soon and will be really interested to know where they set their writing, what inspires them, how much they use the landscape and the historical resources of the area in their work. Maybe this will give me some insights I can carry forward in my research.
I am very much working out my ideas – the questions as much as looking for any answers that this point. I’d love to hear if anyone has ideas of their own about why some landscapes are neglected in fiction – is it that they are intrinsically somehow ‘less’ or is there more to it than that? Any thoughts are welcome. As are suggestions for more fiction set in this part of the world.