On Cozy SFF

[forestofglory]

Over the last decade or so I've seen the term “cozy” applied to a subset of SFF more and more. I've even used it myself as the theme of a couple of short SFF rec lists. But I also see confusion as to what "cozy SFF" means, and a certain amount of scorn for the concept. I think the concept of cozy SFF has a lot to offer, even if I’m not thrilled with the current direction the subgenre is going.

First let's define what cozy SFF is. Now I'm not a fan of drawing hard and fast genre lines, instead I like to think about genre as conversation. Cozy SFF has been around long enough that we can talk about some key themes in the conversation. Cozy SFF generally has small stakes, focusing on small moments, not the fate of the world. These lower stakes generally go along with much less onscreen violence in these stories. Another key aspect of cozy SFF is that it focuses on community-building. And finally, cozy SFF honors the importance of domestic labor and other undervalued jobs.

Of course some books meet some of these criteria but not others, but are worth discussing as part of the cozy conversation. This isn’t meant to draw hard lines around cozy SFF, but rather to outline the key themes that I want to talk more about.

Often when I talk to people about what makes a book cozy we get caught up in how the book makes the reader feel. However, I find that unhelpful. Different readers can feel very different things about the same book! The same book can be harrowing or comforting to different readers. So instead of focusing on intangibles I want to focus on elements of plot and theme.

Cozy fiction is part of the reaction to grimdark, because unrelenting grimness is not “realism.” The idea of cozy stories gets looked down on for being low conflict and low violence, but the low stakes problems of cozy SFF are closer to most of our day-to-day lives than any fantasy of political agency.

I sometimes see cozy SFF compared to cozy mysteries but I think that they are not closely related and are separate conversations. Romance novels, on the other hand, often deal with similar themes to cozy SFF, and I hope to see more stories that are in conversation with both traditions.

Cozy SFF focuses on community- building. In “Fandom for Robots” a robot learns how to make friends and participate in transformative fandom. In The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet the crew of a spaceship must get along during a long isolated journey. We see community-building appear again and again in cozy fiction. Being in community with other people is harder than it seems and one of the most important things that we do as humans. Stories that showcase this are vital. Looking closely at how communities work or don't on a small scale helps us better understand our own communities.

In "The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction" Ursula K Le Guin wrote about the difficulty of centering tasks that have to be done again and again in stories. Cozy fiction succeeds at making domestic labor matter to the story. In these stories a correctly-made meal can win someone's heart or change someone's fate. Building relationships of caring matters. Seeing and valuing these everyday acts is powerful.

Now having read all that, you might think that I love all cozy SFF, but in fact there's several popular cozy SFF stories that I dislike or have mixed feelings about. So let's talk about the ways cozy SFF can fail at its goals. The main failure point of cozy SFF is insularity–stories that are so focused on the small that they ignore the wider implications. One way this can happen is that fairly dire social conditions can be normalized. For example, the background eugenics and cultural uniformity are brushed over in Becky Chamber's Wayfarer books. Another way that cozy SFF is too tightly focused is slapdash worldbuilding. I spent most of Legends & Lattes wondering about the broader economy of the world. Cozy SFF is small-scale but that doesn't mean that the larger picture shouldn't matter. When the larger picture is ignored, stories feel ungrounded.

There’s a recent trend in cozy SFF of having the main characters starting a small business, generally something that acts as a gathering place like a coffee shop or a bookstore. These stories overlook how much work and stress running a small business is! I get that the idea of spending all your time in a cozy yarn store is appealing, and these kinds of places are important for building community. But the fantasy of ease to me undermines one of the key points of cozy fantasy: that building community and performing domestic labor are work. Taking away that labor undervalues work that is already undervalued, instead of showing how vital that work really is.

Despite its flaws, cozy SFF is important. Stories at all scales matter. Cozy SFF's focus on community and domestic labor help us to remember the importance of these things and imagine worlds where they are valued.

Comments

[brownbetty]

I think, in re: failure points for cozy fiction, one of the things your post makes me think about is that cozy SFF fails when it *artificially* lowers the stakes by hand-waving real problems, or reducing their importance. Like, "Of course running a coffee shop is easy" makes the story low-stakes by ignoring the reality of actual business ownership!

I think you are also making a point about how some cozy SFF wants to have it both ways? Assert that labour is important, but also minimize the *labour* part of labour? A sort aesthetic marxism?

[lizbee]

"Cottagecore but make it retail"?

I actually really enjoy stories about the reality of running a business -- I find that sort of thing really appealing. But I dislike Cosy SFF almost as much as I dislike Cosy Mysteries, largely because of the handwaving and the refusal to dig into worldbuilding and negative implications of elements of the fictional society being created.

I felt similarly about "hopepunk" -- I have trouble seeing the appeal in a genre that wilfully overlooks social problems or even bad behaviour from a sufficiently likeable character. It all starts to feel a bit Zone of Interesty with the unwillingness to look over the metaphoric wall.

[rydra_wong]

I think you are also making a point about how some cozy SFF wants to have it both ways? Assert that labour is important, but also minimize the *labour* part of labour?

I wonder if the same sometimes applies re: the community-building element too? My impression is that it often leans towards a "found family" outcome where everyone in a very small group genuinely likes and cares about each other on a personal level, and not, say, "improving your local community involves learning to work in coalition with people you have deep disagreements with and will never be any sort of friends with and actually maybe dislike."

[brownbetty]

The old "found family is relentlessly nice and supportive, never weird and needy"

[rydra_wong]

That too. And certainly never a hint of "We're just like a family!!! so we certainly can't deal with that missing stair."

Or "this person is weird and aloof and not personally bonding with our wonderful found family so no resources for YOU in the apocalypse."

I mean, I understand the fantasy appeal of the story where community-building is very important but also relatively easy and basically about making friends with some cool people! It's like the guaranteed HEA in a romance novel, it's part of the genre conventions and what people go to it for.

But I think it would be really interesting to have some stories about community-building which are more chewy about the difficulties and not "cozy" in emotional tone.

... I realize that what I'm doing here is possibly inventing a micro-genre that nobody apart from me wants to read.

[wychwood]

No, no, there's at least two of us!

Have you ever read Laurie Marks' "Logic" books? An awful lot of those is about building coalitions with people you really don't like for excellent reasons.

[rydra_wong]

I've read some of them, ages ago -- it'd be interesting to go back and re-read with that lens specifically.

[schneefink]

I really like this aspect also because it instantly makes the whole thing more relatable. Everyone likes each other and gets along with almost no friction (once the misunderstandings etc are cleared up)? It's not quite magic but definitely not my lived experience. There's some people you just don't vibe with but you still manage to compromise and build a strong and good community? Much more believable for me.
I second the rec for the Elemental Logic books as some I remember doing that.

[asakiyume]

"aesthetic marxism" is a great phrase (hi... I'm coming to the post 9 months later...)

[lirazel]

This is very interesting!

Judging by your initial description, I should love cozy SFF (and do, if you consider, say Robin McKinley's Chalice or Sunshine or maybe even UKL's Tehanu as cozy SFF). I absolutely LOVE the idea of lower-stakes situations, community-building, and focus on domestic labor.

But most of what's being published now doesn't work for me--it feels too twee? Like the emotions and worldbuilding aren't deep or nuanced enough? I want more to chew on! I feel very "I waws rooting for you!" when I see what's published now--I want to like it, but I don't.

Chalice, Sunshine, and Tehanu

[(Anonymous)]

The term I heard years ago for this kind of story was "domestic fantasy," which I fell in love with quickly as a term for stories centering the home and often women's everyday lives. Jo Walton's Lifelode is another I'd put into that category, or UKL's Lavinia. I love those books, and though they do match the description of cozy fantasy in some ways, I do think that cozy implies an upbeat cheer that domestic doesn't require.

I love both, actually--reading about good people having an easy time is sometimes valuable--but they are separate likes for separate moods, and I'd love to see more rich domestic fantasy. Recommendations welcome!

Re: Chalice, Sunshine, and Tehanu

[lirazel]

Well, domestic fantasy is one of my favorite kinds, then! And I would also love more recommendations!

[jajalala]

Thanks for writing this up! I've heard of a lot of cozy SFF recently, but on instinct I assumed it likely wasn't the sort of thing I would like, since I tend to get bored of stories that don't have a driving plot or tension. However, I do really like stories that focus on relationships, and I definitely have a soft spot for highlighting domestic labor... so hmm maybe I should give it a proper chance.

This post has confirmed I probably would not like Legends and Lattes, that's the one I've seen recced a lot that on my first glance I was like "Hm this seems kinda too chill/tensionless for me" and has kind of made me turn away every time I hear another book described as cozy SFF. After reading this post though, I think I'll take a peek at Fandom for Robots, since I'm always a big fan of robot-centric stories. And I think I'll take a closer look next time I see cozy sff... it sounds like there ARE stories in there that maintain some sort of tension and provide insights applicable to the average life lived.

Again, thanks for sharing! This was a great sized snapshot for me to interrogate my instincts on and learn more about cozy SFF

[beradan]

There’s a recent trend in cozy SFF of having the main characters starting a small business, generally something that acts as a gathering place like a coffee shop or a bookstore. These stories overlook how much work and stress running a small business is! I get that the idea of spending all your time in a cozy yarn store is appealing, and these kinds of places are important for building community. But the fantasy of ease to me undermines one of the key points of cozy fantasy: that building community and performing domestic labor are work. Taking away that labor undervalues work that is already undervalued, instead of showing how vital that work really is.

Oh, that's it. I enjoyed Legends & Lattes enough to pick up the second one, but it's not really a genre I'd come back to. I think I just didn't recognize it because I've never worked retail. I definitely can't read cozy mysteries set in libraries because I know too much about how libraries work.

[kathmandu]

There was a wave, about twenty years ago, of multiple cozy-mystery series featuring a heroine who had been in some occupation like accounting, and got fed up with how stressful it was and how full of contacts with criminal people, so she started a carpentry business, or a bakery, or just bought a big old house in the country and spent all her time repairing it. Which last is not even an income-generating activity, but these were written in the aftermath of a stock crash and economic recession. 'Accounting is high-stress and introduces you to the criminal element' was a direct reaction to the crash having revealed embezzlement, stock frauds, etc. And all these stories were fantasies of having a concrete, generative occupation where you could be your own boss, doing things that people often enjoy when it's a hobby or a now-and-then task. The bakery one acknowleged that getting up at four am every day to start the baking could be hard on a person's social life...but then she somehow always fitted in lots of cosy chats and freelance detection, and the sleep-deprivation never caught up with her.

Just by way of background to your points

[kathmandu]

In the case of cozy mysteries, I see key aspects as being that *things are generally fine.*
The government is just and humane. The economy is mostly going fine. You and your friends are okay and do not need to worry about your survival. You HAVE friends, a pleasantly-large circle of best friends and middling friends and neighbors with whom you are on good terms, and romantic happiness if the author is inclined that way. Life is generally pleasant. The only problem is the murder, and it's discrete and capable of being solved by the end of the book.

The details of how things are fine vary - cats, gardening, knitting circle, sudoku, home renovations, antiquing - but whichever details the author puts in are enjoyable ornaments to daily life, the kind of thing people CAN enjoy when they're not worried about whether they'll make rent.

I think this is one way 'cozy apocalypse' and similar veins can fail, as you point out. If it's only cozy for the viewpoint character, and outside the circle of warmth there is terrible suffering or oppression, that violates the 'big picture is generally fine' principle of coziness.

Re: Just by way of background to your points

[ljwrites]

I can see cozy SFF working out in a larger hellscape in one way, and in a way that may be more relevant and hopeful than things generally being fine (which to many today may seem the biggest fantasy of all): Things generally aren't fine and there's not much we can do about it, but we can build meaningful connections and alternatives in this sphere where we have some control, and--crucially--rather than hide away from the horribleness, we do what we can, sharing resources and wisdom, spreading a little hope, figuring out how to treat each other well and make reciprocal community work out in a world built on violence and exploitation.

In a way this is even more subversive a story than hero-saves-the-world high-stakes SFF, because it subverts the idea of individual hero-saviors (who in my mind are just villain-tyrants in waiting--live long enough to see yourself become the villain, etc.) altogether, not to mention the idea that we are just a few villain deaths away from utopia. With a focus on community it's possible to say instead that our problems are systematic and institutional in nature and we can't kill our way out of them, nor will a small band of Great Men come riding in to save us. Rather the work of world-making, remaking and building it every single day, lies with all of us and how we learn to live and work together. In this sense cozy SFF, and cozy stories in general, have potential as a very anarchist kind of storytelling, too.

Re: Just by way of background to your points

[brownbetty]

Yeah, I like this take. Maybe the background is refugees fleeing war, but the story can be about welcoming distant relatives into your home and trying to figure out if there's anything to do about the one kid's missing teddy bear, you know? This takes a big problem as the background, and acknowledges that the POV characters aren't going to solve it, but lets the story's conflict be about managing the important work in fornt of you.

[geraineon]

Oh, I never really quite understood what's cozy SFF until today I guess! Thanks for this write-up. It sounds like something I'd enjoy, in the way I'd enjoy a slice-of-life show... This kinda reminds me of the tropes chat on fedi, the week we talked about coffee shop AUs.

I'll pick up some of these titles to try!

[jajalala]

You may or may not be aware of this, but in case you are not: Apparently this post is a springboard for a panel at ReaderCon this year! You can see it on the schedule for Sunday, 11am. The panel is called "Defining and Appreciating Cozy SFF", and includes Caitlin Rozakis, John Wiswell, Natalie Luhrs, Steven Popkes, and Victoria Janssen. The description is:
At the blog Lady Business, forestofglory argues that cozy SFF "generally has small stakes," "focuses on community-building," and "honors the importance of domestic labor and other undervalued jobs." She also argues that its main failure mode is "insularity": failing to ground a story by situating it within a larger context, or failing to recognize the implications of its background worldbuilding. Panelists will explore how this framework illuminates cozy SFF's appeal, scope, and relationships to other subgenres.

[forestofglory]

Ahhh! That's so cool! I'm honored! Thank you for telling me about it!

discussing stakes

[brainwane]

Recently, instead of calling the stakes in many of these stories "small", I've been calling them "personal". To quote from the "What grabs and keeps me" section of a blog post I wrote about choosing short sf/f to highlight on MetaFilter: will this craftsman find the materials he needs to make his masterpiece violin? will this careworker find a way to understand and connect with her patient? will this aunt successfully make the cake that she wants to serve as a gesture of reconciliation with her family?

Because these ARE big stakes to the point-of-view the story offers us to share.

There's a moment in the Wim Wenders movie Perfect Days where a person cleaning a public toilet notices a left-behind bit of paper, a note from a stranger. The specific way he reacted to it elicited an audible gasp from me and a similar reaction from my seatmate. It has nothing to do with death or saving the world or stakes like that -- nothing about this choice will be fatal, or make the news or the history books. It's just a choice having to do with human connection, and the suspense captivated me far more than a lot of action movie-type stakes do.

Re: discussing stakes

[forestofglory]

This such a great comment and you are so right! I will use "personal stakes" from now on.

[asakiyume]

Hi there! Here from your Mastodon account ;-)

Yeah, what you say about cozy SFF that doesn't work for you has me thinking about the problems I've had with the cozy SFF I've read. Although I liked the philosophical conversations in Chambers's A Psalm for the Wildbuilt, I really was bothered by how much stuff was just **there** in the world of the story (mainly things like solar panels and wind turbines)--things that, in our current world, we get by exploitative extraction, etc. etc. I don't like just handwaving these things into existence because it feels too much like how people think now to the detriment of the world: "Oh, highways/smartphones/cheap food just ~ happens ~; I don't need to think about how." And, okay, the world is meant to be a cozy one; the purpose of the story isn't to address those questions--I get that--but you could handwave in something that acknowledges reality, e.g., "I remembered it was my friend Dusa's turn on volunteer mining duty" or "I'd been dreading my stint doing manufacturing, but it was actually kind of interesting"--just SOMETHING that acknowledges that if you're going to have high tech stuff, and if you don't want want it to be exploitative, then, well, it's going to take some other system of getting it. We can't all be growers of organic lavender or tea merchants...

But this also can be a YMMV thing--what gets under one person's skin in one book may not bother other readers, and that same bothered reader may give a pass to something in another book that bothers a different reader.

[forestofglory]

This a great comment, thank you!

It really is very subjective which exact little details bother and person, but of those things are indicative of bigger problem in some way