Cozy mysteries are fun to write and fun to read. But some tropes have outlived their novelty.
A quick trip down the Cozy Mysteries aisle of Amazon shows over 50,000 titles. Cozies are big business, especially in the self-publishing world, and very popular. Every woman and her cat seems to want to write a cozy.
What’s a cozy?
A cozy mystery is a soft crime story. The appeal of a cozy is that it’s about solving a crime (typically a murder). The fun is in following the clues and finding the criminal, not about watching the crime itself happen. There is no graphic violence, sex, or profanity ‘on-stage’ in a cozy.
Think Miss Marple, or Brother Cadfael, or Agatha Raisin.
Cozy expectations
Every writing genre has expected tropes and conventions and the cozy is no exception.
A cozy mystery needs a crime and an amateur investigator. It’s usually set in a small town or quaint village. The main character (MC) is an ‘ordinary’ person who somehow ends up involved in the investigation and is instrumental in solving the crime. They do not generally work in law enforcement themselves.
5 outdated cozy tropes
Cozies have been around for a long time. If you’re writing one for today’s reader, be aware that many of the tropes of old are well past their use-by-date, have been done to death, or don’t fit with the current worldview.
Before you dive into writing a cozy, listen to what today’s readers are saying.
Following are real comments from avid cozy fans on Facebook and in Amazon reviews. Readers are more likely to DNF¹ your story, and not buy or recommend other books by you, if you include the following tired outdated tropes.
1. Incompetent or uninterested police
Even though the MC is not an official law enforcement officer, police are still integral to a cozy mystery. With the glut of crime fiction — books, movies, tv shows— and documentaries, today’s readers are more aware than ever of real police procedures and some things that used to be amusing no longer work in any type of story (barring out-right comedy).
What people are saying:
- It’s unrealistic, disrespectful, and annoying when police are portrayed as bumbling idiots or as not interested in solving the crime.
- Don’t have a policeman take his girlfriend to a crime scene on the way home from a date. Especially before the crime scene’s been processed.
- Don’t have the MC in constant competition with the police. Don’t have them withhold vital evidence from the police.
2. Too much romance/love triangles/matchmaking
Romance is often included as a B story in a cozy, and that’s ok, but be cognizant of the things that turn today’s readers off.
What people are saying:
- Don’t have the romance story overshadow or take up more space than the mystery story.
- Don’t have two guys/girls vying or fighting for the attention of the MC, especially over many books in a series. Make up your mind already and cut one free.
- Don’t have the MC’s mother or friends keep trying to matchmake and push the MC onto a date with that hot guy they saw in the coffee shop. And, just because she is going out with him, don’t have everyone pushing her to marry him. Also, don’t have friends that want to know every detail of a date. Leave her alone.
3. Unearned clues/contrived situations
A cozy needs clues and red herrings but they need to be earned, not handed to the MC on a plate.
What people are saying:
- Don’t have clues fall into the MC’s lap without them having to do any detective work.
- Don’t have contrived situations which the characters accidentally stumble upon. Give them a believable reason to be there.
- Don’t hide clues from the reader. Make them subtle but don’t leave any out, especially ones that are instrumental in solving the mystery.
4. Too much irrelevant detail
Like any book in any genre, there’s a fine line between too much information and not enough.
What people are saying:
- Don’t include intricate detail about everything that everyone ate, or what clothes everyone was wearing, or all the furniture in a room.
- We don’t want to learn how to knit, crochet, sew, cook, take great photos, etc., from a cozy mystery. We don’t need to read every step of the process.
- Don’t include details just to pad out the story. If it’s not relevant to the story, leave it out.
5. Unsatisfactory or unexplained resolution
The resolution to a cozy has to be realistic, surprising, and satisfying.
What people are saying:
- Make sure the motive and method are explained in full by the end of the story. Don’t leave us wondering how they managed to kill someone when the house was full of people.
- Don’t cheat me by leaving out pertinent information in the body of the story. Don’t have a new character come in near the end with the key to the mystery.
- Don’t give me a Scooby Doo finish. Surprise me.
You can’t please all readers all of the time. But you can listen.
It’s not hard these days to find a conversation about books.
“There’s a lot of difference between listening and hearing.” ― GK Chesterton
Don’t just hear what readers in your genre are saying. Really listen and be prepared to rethink aspects of your stories to keep people coming back.
Happy readers = happy buyers.
¹DNF = Did not finish
