So What Makes a Cozy Genre, Anyway?

In today’s publishing climate, there is one type of book that seems to be taking the industry (and readers) by storm: cozy books.

Odds are, you’ve seen the term thrown around in most genres, with the most famous being cozy mysteries and one of the newest being cozy fantasies. It’s not even a trend that is only in books, either. The gaming world has had a niche of “cozy games” for decades, with genre only gaining more popularity over the years.

However…what does the term even mean, anyway? What makes a story cozy, and what is a cozy genre? And, more importantly, how do you make something that feels cozy?

Let’s talk about it.

What Does Cozy Mean?

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, to be cozy is to be “enjoying or affording warmth and ease,” or “marked by or providing warmth and comfort.”

This also applies to cozy stories.

A cozy story is meant to make you feel warm and fuzzy inside. It’s meant to be like drinking a perfect cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter’s day. A cozy story is all about feelings of comfort, sweet and pleasant at its core.

In short, cozies are the ultimate comfort food of storytelling.

Cozy is the opposite of grimdark. The story isn’t here to stress out the audience, it’s here to give a pleasant experience. You don’t go into a cozy mystery worrying about the main character being killed or maimed by a serial killer like you might in a thriller, you go into it wanting to see the intrepid protagonist getting into all kinds of hijinks as they solve a mystery. If there is a murder, it’s off-screen, and the body (if it appears on-screen) isn’t described in gruesome detail. The language isn’t harsh, and sexual content is implied rather than in the audience’s face.

Small Stakes, Big Heart.

This is one of the first things that comes up with cozy stories: low stakes.

The main characters aren’t at risk of death. The world isn’t going to end. If there are any animal companions, they are going to be safe. When going into a cozy story, there’s a knowledge that the characters you fall in love with are going to make it to the end safe and sound and live another day. In a cozy game, there’s less focus on fighting enemies and more focus on making friends or solving puzzles.

The drama in cozy stories tend to come more from interpersonal relationships rather than characters being in peril, exploring emotions like love, family, and friendship. In fact, emotional storytelling is one of the strengths of cozy stories, with many cozies having absolute gut-punches of storytelling. Cozy games and films are particularly notorious for this (just look at the work of Studio Ghibli, which is notorious for having stories that are both cozy and heart wrenching).

Remember, just because a story is low stakes doesn’t mean that it can’t have intense (and beautiful) emotional impact.

It’s All About the Vibes.

Atmosphere is absolutely everything.

For something to be cozy, it has to have a certain warmth to it. In visual media, atmosphere is achieved through art style and music. The art style has softer, warmer colours. The music is gentle and calming.

When it comes to written media, atmosphere is done through writing style and description.

If a character is eating apple pie, it’s not just described as apple pie; the pie is fresh-baked and warm, with a rich, sweet aroma. Every bite explodes with the taste of apples and cinnamon, the crust perfectly flaking at the lightest touch. The pie itself has a golden hue to it, baked with love and care.

The apple pie is not just apple pie, it’s the best, warmest, and sweetest apple pie to ever exist. You want your audience to feel like they could reach in and have a slice.

The same goes for any other cozy element: the fire in the fireplace has a perfect crackle; the blanket wrapped around the character’s shoulders is soft and smells like home.

Time spent with friends is full of fellowship, and relationships are long-lasting and loyal. The settings are familiar and have a tight-knit small town charm, where everyone knows everyone.

The Coziness of the Mundane

Launching off the last point about atmosphere, a lot of establishing atmosphere and a cozy mood in a story is through embracing the coziness of the mundane.

There is a comfort that comes with the small joys in life, and a lot of making a story cozy is embracing those small moments. Even stories with heavier plots can be made to feel cozy by focusing on the right details, finding the moments of quiet between the bigger problems that the characters need to solve. Moments like a routine lunch with a good friend, or sitting down to enjoy a cup of tea.

There’s a reason a lot of cozy mysteries have a focus on food, many even having recipes at the back of the book. Good food is a quick way to creating cozy and warm atmosphere, after all.

What Are Some Good Examples of Cozy Stories?

One of the best ways to learn how a part of storytelling works is to see it done well.

Personally, I also believe that even though this is a blog about books, every medium of storytelling is worth looking at and learning from.

In books, “cozy” is a subgenre in several mainstream genres, but the big ones that come to mind are cozy mystery genre and cozy fantasy.

Cozy mystery is an enormous subgenre, with a huge range of series to pick from. Some of the more popular ones lately have been series like Richard Oseman’s The Thursday Murder Club, and Nita Prose’s Molly the Maid. (If you’d like to explore just how expansive the cozy mystery genre is, check out cozy-mystery.com.)

Cozy fantasy is a subgenre that’s been gaining popularity in leaps and bounds lately, and some of its biggest stars are Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree and Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett.

When it comes to film, there are few more notoriously cozy stories than the work of Studio Ghibli, particularly works like Howl’s Moving Castle, My Neighbour Totoro, and Kiki’s Delivery Service. Pixar movies are also known for having a cozier atmosphere, with Ratatouille and Wall-E coming to mind.

In gaming, some of the top cozy games are undoubtedly Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley, though just about any life or farming sim tends to fit the bill. It’s a very popular subgenre of gaming, after all.

So What’s the Takeaway, Then?

So what, really, is a cozy genre?

Well, like I said earlier, cozy stories are the equivalent of comfort food, designed to play on feelings of nostalgia and a sense of home. They are the opposite of grimdark, meant to give the audience a sense of comfort. Cozy stories have warm atmospheres and low stakes, inviting the audience to escape with them for a few hours.

It’s an inviting and sweet subgenre of media, and with its increasing popularity in recent years, it’s a subgenre that is here to stay.