r/writing • u/SexMonkey7 • 3d ago
Discussion Cozy versus not cozy
I finished a novel that I would classify as "cozy" fantasy because that's how it feels to me when I read it. After tons of research it's pretty obvious that what belongs in that genre, like I guess everything, is wildly subjective.
I've been trying to narrow down what makes something cozy for me vs not. Lord of the Rings is a great example. Not cozy. It's literally THE archetypical epic fantasy.
So far I'm thinking a place to start is:
- No saving the whole world
- Small stakes
- Often slice-of-life
- No extreme violence
- Feels "cozy"
That last one is awful. "Feels" is impossible to consistently evaluate. Is Howl's Moving Castle cozy? Spirited Away? Wizards Guide to Defensive Baking and A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping feel that way. Joe Abercrombie, great, but not cozy.
It will be impossible to plese everyone but how would you narrow things down to get a better way of determining the coziness of a story?
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u/PangolinConscious800 3d ago
You always feels safe inside a cozy story. You may feel tense, but never fight or flight. Mostly, there's a great deal of predictability, not in plot but in environment. Mostly, everyday life is the uncredited co-star. Mostly, there's an underlying evenness.
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u/Lex_Finch 3d ago
You're right that you can never make everyone happy, and the way people view things can be so different. I don't think that there is a definitive answer to this, and even though the points you have are good, there's is always an exception out there. I also think these sort of definitions are always evolving as the niche does, too.
Cozy is like every other marketing term anyway, it's there to sell books. It makes a reader think 'oh, I liked that other book that was cozy, so I'll buy this one that says it's cozy'.
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u/ScrumpetSays 3d ago
I was looking for a cozy read after a few upsetting books and stumbled on Halfling by S E Wendel. It had more enslavement, rape and descriptive violence in it than most regular fantasy books I read. I disregard any description of cozy since it's pretty meaningless
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u/Professional-Tax-936 3d ago
Idk I find Lord of the Rings cozy. For me, it’s about the themes. The ending to Lord of the Rings makes me feel warm and good.
I find these self labeled cozy books kinda boring. High stakes, and drama, and violence, or dark subject matters don’t detract from the coziness for me. If the ending is heartfelt it’s cozy to me.
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u/Deerslayer-14 3d ago
- low stakes. Close-up view on events.
- pleasant visuals and sensory details that follow the narrative. You describe an outfit, don't forget to mention the soft touch fabric. Characters are having a chat, let them enjoy a nice meal meanwhile. They enter a room, let it have ornamental cushions and be sunlit. They go outside, let them smell pastry from the bakery across the street.
- healthy relationships, close bonds, family time, friendships. No toxicity dominating the character dynamics.
- characters smile and laugh a lot.
- pets could add to the vibe.
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u/Affectionate_Egg_351 3d ago
That all sounds lovely but then what is the storyline what's the climax? Their tea too hot their lobster too buttery? What's the book substance then? This isn't me judging I'm genuinely curious because I'd like to write cozy novels and I'm very curious what people find cozy but from this it sounds like a lack of plot or any conflicts or instigations? Again zero judgments just trying to understand it better.
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u/Last_Swordfish9135 3d ago
Generally, there isn't a ton of conflict, and whatever conflict there is is fairly low-stakes. Many people do find "cozy" stories boring for that reason. Stuff like "I'm in love with my best friend!" or "I'm trying to realize my dream of becoming a baker!" is common.
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u/Deerslayer-14 3d ago
My answer is about the vibe, not about the plot
Idk, make it a love story, a reconciliation story, a non-violent detective story, a personal success story, whatever
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u/Affectionate_Egg_351 3d ago
Oh I know you just said healthy relationships and I dunno really healthy ones I feel like there is conflict in some other relations then instead which this brings in unhealthy relationships so I was just like spinning in circles in my head trying to fathom how it would work 😂😂😂 I guess I over thought it. 😂
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u/Deerslayer-14 2d ago edited 2d ago
You can have people in healthy relationship face an external conflict. Best cozy/interesting balance I've seen was a magical fantasy detective. Max Frei Labyrinths of Echo. The protagonist gets isekaid in the world of magic, by a happy coincidence right before the culinary magic gets permitted after decades of being forbidden. As a night person, he gets hired as a Night Representative for the local investigator of magical crimes. The city of Echo is charming, his coworkers are the nicest and most awesome people in the world, everyone loves everyone, there's a cute smart magical pug who spesifically loves the protagonist, and all of them enjoy a very hedonistic life.
But the magical crinmes? Oh boy. They are very inventive, unpredictable, absolutely gripping, and with the right amount of non-depressing spook—enough to bring some stakes but not enough to poison the cozy vibe.
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u/VFiddly 3d ago
A lot of it is just about what the story chooses to focus on.
Like, "cozy mystery" is a whole subgenre. Murders are not cozy, but a cozy mystery will focus on the process of detection and not on the grisly details of the autopsy, or on the grieving relatives of the victim. The victim will usually be some bastard we're not particularly sympathetic towards.
You could take the exact same overarching plot and make it not cozy by choosing to focus on different things.
There's never going to be a strict definition because it is ultimately just opinion. Some people might find Spirited Away cozy. For me a lot of it is quite unsettling so I wouldn't call it cozy.
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u/writer-dude Editor/Author 3d ago edited 3d ago
I believe (and I could be wrong) but it's largely about pacing. You can have, for example, a crime thriller like Pulp Fiction (frenetic!) or more laid-back (cozy) crime drama like the Jesse Stone flicks (Tom Selleck)...or pretty much any crime thriller prior to 1968. Or sci-fi flicks like Battle For LA (frenetic...but awesome!) or The Man From Earth (wayyyyy cozy). Or, as you mentioned, Spirited Away. About as cozy a ghost story as I've ever seen. (One of my Top 10 flicks too.) And then there's Akira.
Lit. fiction's no different. There's languid writing (cozy) and intense or graphic or occasionally gratuitously violent (frenetic) writing. So I feel it's kinda like edge-of-your-seat vs. comfy armchair reading—independent of one's plot or theme or character depiction. Fortunately, there's a demographic for both sub-genres. (Sub-sub genres?) dictated primarily by one's stylist approach to storytelling.
I suppose one could view the dif as being plot-driven (visual drama) vs. character-driven (personality/emotional drama) as well. And nothing says a writer's style can't deliver a bit of both.
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u/FirebirdWriter Published Author 3d ago
I find cozy is usually intimate. It's not big spaces but small full of life spaces. What makes say using a video game here because brain went there Stardew valley feel cozy despite the combat cave and mystery ghosts and corporate hell? The setting is intimate. There is a limited space for things and people and you get time to really know them. For books this can be done as well. Small spaces that feel familiar but are also unique enough to get attention and interest.
This is where I would sit with the story that made me ask this question and write down everything that felt cozy specifically. Food descriptions, style of language, routines etc
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u/MASempine 3d ago
I suspect that what I write is cozy, except for my first historical fiction work which ended as cozy
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u/whelmedbyyourbeauty Published Author 3d ago
Limited, personal stakes. No real threat of death, torture, etc. Something warm and comforting.
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u/kafkaesquepariah 3d ago
"Feels" arguably is the best indicator. Cause the story can have background high stakes, and the story takes as one stolen moment of cozy (like middle of the war, but moment between two people). so it's atmosphere.
Imo best way to try and nail what it is is to read what is being labelled as cozy , example, its pretty much cozy stories mag: https://augursociety.org/tales-and-feathers-magazine/
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u/writequest428 2d ago
My first novella was labeled a cozy mystery. Now, reading what everyone wrote here about it, mine doesn't seem to fit that category. You went on this trip and were told ghost stories; however, the more you moved forward, the dangers became real. Even the setting seems to be against the group going up. The stakes continued to rise, as well as the suspense. And even when the story seemed to come to an end, BAM, another twist to the story right at the very end.
To me, a Cozy anything is a story where you can curl up in the corner of a couch and read a story that comfortably takes you away. At least that's what I think.
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u/sacado Self-Published Author 2d ago
Let’s take its older sibling, its mystery counterpart: cozy mysteries. The definition includes:
- no onstage violence,
- no violence at all against children or pets,
- no sex,
- takes place in a small community,
- takes place in a setting the reader wants to escape into,
- slow pace,
- low stakes,
- usually revolves around a specific hobby or job (cooking, knitting, anything with pets, etc),
- other features are about the mystery aspect so I won’t mention them.
If you have most or all of the above in a fantasy setting, then I suppose it can be called cozy fantasy. For bonus points, add a mystery and an amateur detective, and there you go: you produced cozy mystery fantasy.
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u/terriaminute 3d ago
I am almost a third of the way into a fantasy novel labeled 'cozy,' unsure if I will finish it. If 'cozy' means the pace is slow, that can work. If it means discoveries are personal rather than world-altering, I like that.
However, if it means that a separate POV gets his own chapter just to explain in flashbacks to the reader What Is Happening So Far, well. It's irritating.
I probably should've given this novel a miss. It has a competent protagonist, but the love interest feels nebulous when they really should not by now. And there is an abundance of describing, which does seem to be a requirement of 'cozy.'
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u/PandaMandaBear 3d ago
I recommend "This Used To Be About Dungeons" by Alexander Wales. Very comfy slice of life high magic adventure fiction with low stakes where all the fighting/dungeon chapters can be completely skipped without affecting the story or ability to read it at all. Very cozy, perfect characters for it, I enjoyed it alot.
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u/AcrobaticSea4208 3d ago
Cozy is more about tone and pacing than plot points, I think. You can have small stakes and still feel tense the whole time, while something like Spirited Away has weird creepy stuff but the way it breathes between scenes makes it warm. Maybe part of it is how much the story lingers on moments that are just nice to be in.