Photo by Stéphane Juban on Unsplash

I had ambitious plans for this month’s newsletter—largely consisting of packing this lovely imaginary space next to my imaginary office with a total of fourteen kids, two aunts, and no instructions, and seeing where things went from there. (Of course I was expecting pure chaos—that was the entire point.) But then…something happened. Something that brought so many pieces that I’ve wrestled with over the years into focus and felt like such a revelation that I couldn’t resist sharing it here to see if it resonated the same way with my readers.

So this month, I’m going to leave the doors closed, the hallway dark, and the screen off and talk to you in regular essay-type format like a normal writer. Don’t worry, the characters will be back—I still find it way easier to write as them than as myself—and I’m starting to sense ideas brewing in some of their heads for ways to make themselves less entirely at my mercy in this space, so…that should be interesting. But all that to say, I have no intention of reverting to this format any more than once in a blue moon. And also, since this month’s moon seems to be the kind of breathtaking shade of blue that stopped me dead in my tracks and made me sit and bask in its light for hours and inspired me to tell everyone about the experience—yes, this metaphor is quickly getting out of hand, but—here we are.

The revelation in question came in the form of a YouTube video that randomly popped up on my page. I’ll be honest—I don’t watch many YouTube videos on writing. I think it’s mostly because so much of my writing process is instinctual that I have a hard time applying most of the advice, and a lot of it just flat out doesn’t work for me. But I do have a bit of a soft spot for people analyzing certain tropes and why they work and when they don’t—things that I understand by instinct but couldn’t explain until someone else puts words to it. So the title “In Defense of Low-Stakes Fiction” intrigued me, and I clicked on the video.

To be honest, most of the video’s content wasn’t life-altering for me. It mainly used examples from video games, talking about how sometimes it was nice to play something that just involved gardening, or running a bake shop, or something quiet and normal instead of an epic world-saving quest. But at one point, the creator used a genre descriptor that I’d never heard of. And that descriptor was “cozy fiction.”

I was deeply intrigued. I’ve heard of cozy mystery, of course (although I don’t usually read it because murder mysteries tend to creep me out no matter how sweet and small-town the setting is), but this seemed to be something different. We weren’t talking about mysteries at all, it seemed, but other stories that were being labeled as “cozy.” Stories with normal characters and low stakes and time to catch your breath. I wanted to know more. So I went Google searching.

What I found is that “cozy” subgenres of fiction (aside from mystery, of course) have only become a specifically labeled thing relatively recently. It was hard to find much information on the subject, but there are a few writers and readers who have set out their own tentative definition of what counts as “cozy fiction.” As expected, these definitions don’t always match up. The term appears to have started with fantasy, migrated to sci-fi, and recently been also applied to romance. Most of the books suggested were ones that I hadn’t read and don’t intend to read for various reasons. And yet reading these descriptions and defenses and stabs at definitions—I felt like I had come home.

Some of you may know that I’ve struggled with the characterization of my books ever since I started publishing them. Bridgers wasn’t terribly difficult—it’s definitely contemporary, definitely young adult, and has enough elements that came right up against the edges of my comfort zone that I felt compelled to put a parents’ note at the beginning. Start your entire brand with the edgiest thing you’ve ever written…yeah, that should work out great… But still—it didn’t step over that line. We saw the aftermath of violence, not the violence itself. A teenager mentions smoking and pulls out a cigarette, but ends up not using it. The background of the rough neighborhood is a constant presence and a big part of the plot, but the book doesn’t dive into the gritty details. But still, it was close enough to the books it was shelved next to that I didn’t feel compelled to explain why it was different any time someone reached for it.

But as I continued publishing, I began to struggle. Love Blind didn’t seem too hard a sell for the contemporary romance category. Code was harder. Aside from the difficulty of defining what this world even was (sci-fi—maybe—kinda—because of the computer stuff? Or dystopian—sorta—almost—right on the edge?), I began to have the uneasy feeling that whatever label I picked, someone looking for that thing would find my stories ever so slightly…off. Even when dealing explicitly with world-ending stakes, my focus was narrow. Personal. More about family and healing and restoration. The plot fed the point, sure, but it wasn’t the point in itself. I couldn’t define this, but I felt it. And the feeling only grew stronger as the years went by.

Quiet Valor is best classified as non-magical fantasy/kingdom adventure, but when someone picks it up because they’re a fan of those things, I bite my lip and worry. One in a Galaxy can’t be classed as anything but sci-fi, but it’s out of place on those lists. The Chronic Warrior Chronicles is a superhero story, but some of its biggest fans don’t read superheroes, and I’d be hesitant to hand it to a superhero fan without overexplaining the angle that I’m coming from. When people ask me what genre I write, I laugh and stammer and scramble for words because on the face of it, my genres are all over the map. But at their heart, I’ve always felt like my stories are more similar than different. It’s not like I’m alternating between quirky contemporary rom-coms and gritty space battles and epic fantasy quests. I write characters and relationships, and if they happen to be set in an imaginary land, or on a spaceport, or a couple hundred years in the past, it’s almost incidental to what the core of the story is.

Enter cozy fiction. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure I meet the proposed definitions, but I’d feel much more confident arguing that Quiet Valor belongs on a list of cozy fantasy than trying to explain why One in a Galaxy belongs on a shelf with most science fiction. So, with the tentatively proposed definitions for a relatively new genre of which I’ve read none of the defining books—allow me to make my case.

Focus on community and relationships

Most of the attempted definitions of cozy fiction I’ve come across include this in one form or another. Some explicitly include words like “found family” as prominent within the genre, if not required for it. Need I say, my stories have this in spades? Relationships, and beyond that, belonging, are core to every story I write, even if they may not be the main point of an individual story. This is what I’ve tried to explain about my stories for years, but could never find the words to describe why it mattered more than the specific genre trappings of any given setting.

Lack of grittiness, on-screen violence, gore, and other similar elements

Not much to say on this point except that I’ve never really considered putting these things into my stories, so I think I pass this bar. I understand that some people don’t like this approach, and I don’t try to pretend away the awful things that exist in the world, but I don’t personally feel compelled to give them all that much screen time. Check.

Happy endings/low stress/the assurance that things will be okay

Some people separate these out, or name one but not the others, but they all seem to belong in the same sort of bucket to me. Some books you go into entirely unsure whether any of your favorite characters are going to survive to the end. Other books you can be fairly sure that they’re going to come out okay. Have I mentioned how much I don’t like books that make me cry? (Mostly…there are exceptions, but they’re few and far between.) Again, I’m not saying these books don’t have their place. And I’m not promising that no character ever will die in my books, or that I’m above letting at least an apparent death happen when needed for the story. (If you know, you know…) But throwing that kind of thing around randomly? Leaving things without hope and at least a promise of a better future? That’s not my writing. I think I pass this one.

Slice of life scenes/small scale settings

I personally shy away from the phrase “slice of life” because I associate it mostly with an entire lack of plot—this probably stems from my very first written-down story having an absurd unrelated ending tacked on out of the blue because I realized all my fun, snowed-in-with-friends scenes that had gone on for chapters had absolutely no point. But, specific terms aside, do I write people engaging in normal, everyday activities? Yes. Yes, I do. And even with the epic canvas of an entire galaxy to paint on, did I focus in on the details of domestic life for one little family in one tiny spaceport? Yes. Yes, I did. I think we can consider this box checked.

Rich descriptions

I’ll be honest, this one didn’t pop up in all the definitions I found, but when it did, it gave me pause, because I’ll be honest—description is not my selling point. But then again, I do try to use details to create very atmospheric settings, which I think passes for description a lot of the time. And I try not to skimp on the worldbuilding, just because I’m working on a much smaller scale. So, I think I’m in the clear on this one.

Low stakes/personal stakes

Okay, so this is the one where I feel like I’m on the shakiest ground. Not with most of my stories—generally, this is dead-on. The stakes are about people and relationships and personal growth. However, this element seems to be pitted in most cases specifically against the idea of “saving the world”—which gives me pause for just a couple of my stories. But since one of those stories felt the most displaced in its own genre and most at home when I first started imagining what “cozy fiction” might be, I want to fight for it. More than I ever did for any other genre. So let’s try.

The book I’m thinking of is A Threat and a Promise, where Jaelyn is explicitly on a mission to “save the world,” or at least the world as she knows it. So how can I argue it belongs in a category of books where the idea of low or intensely personal stakes are almost universally considered a defining characteristic? Well, for one thing, Jaelyn’s battles within the book are intensely personal. Arguably, her most traditional heroic act comes at the very beginning, and the rest of the book is spinning out the consequences of that act. Unusually for a “saving the world” plotline, there’s little action and no battles. Jaelyn never meets the distant villain, and there’s no direct confrontation with the secondary one. She’s doing her part—a big part—to save the world, but it comes in quietness and watchfulness, in fleeing to spread the news to the other threatened kingdoms, in weeks riding and talking and cooking over a campfire. She is saving the world as a whole, but in a quiet, unsung, personal way that the epic fantasy genre would scratch their head at. So…low stakes? Not quite. Personal stakes? Most definitely. But…stakes that, while high, aren’t roaring in your face like most save the world plots? 100%. So, paradoxically, I am going to fight for A Threat and a Promise’s right to be placed in this “low stakes” genre, even if, on the surface, the stakes don’t seem to be all that low.

Warm, peaceful feelings

And now we come to the “vibes” part of the definition, which is so easy to understand on a personal level and so hard to define on a wider scale. But may I just say, I named my publishing imprint “Quiet Waters Press” after Psalm 23 years before I knew that “cozy fiction” was a thing. My favorite compliments ever have been when someone says they pick up one of my books when they’re stressed, because they know it’ll help them relax, even if it’s a new one they’ve never read before. That’s why I do this. That’s what I want. That’s why I think I fit in this genre, even though I’ve only just been introduced to it and may never read the majority of the books contained in it. But—that’s why it felt like coming home.

So now I have to ask, as my readers, what do you think? Have you ever heard of “cozy fiction”? Do you think it’s a good descriptor of my stories? Do you think it’s a helpful term that would attract the right kind of readers, or are there reasons you would steer away from it? Obviously there’s no “cozy fiction” genre to class myself in on Amazon (although it does show up in a keyword search), but I can see it simplifying discussions about what exactly I write, as long as it doesn’t cause confusion. But you guys are the experts on what my stories are as opposed to what I think they are, so I very much value your opinions. Do I write “cozy fiction” that just happens to be historical, or sci-fi, or superhero? Or is there a better descriptor that ties all my books together? No pressure, but I would love to hear your thoughts!

Oh, and here are the two books that are free this weekend, just in case you missed them in the glut of Black Friday emails—featuring two aunts with fourteen nieces and nephews between them, and so many cozy vibes. I hope you enjoy, and I’ll see you back next month, most likely in the usual format. God bless, and thanks for listening to my ramble!

Get Home Forever

Get Oversight

Non-exhaustive list of sources:

In Defense of Low Stakes Fiction

https://theafictionado.wordpress.com/2024/08/08/comfort-and-catharsis-or-what-even-is-cosy-fantasy-and-why-does-it-work/

https://www.rachelneumeier.com/2023/07/21/cozy-fantasy/

https://dovelynnwriter.medium.com/cosy-sff-31aaa6599bc4

https://www.reddit.com/r/CozyFantasy/comments/1c2joct/the_big_cozy_genre_debate/

Thanks for reading Angie Thompson's Author Updates! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.