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

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.