Is Writing Cozy Mysteries Hard?

Mystery/Suspense stories are big sellers in the fiction category. According to many online sources, they are the second if not the third best selling book genre. And one of its many subgenre is Cozy Mysteries.

The name of this mystery/suspense subgenre may seem funny, but they are serious business for many publishers and authors who make a good living writing and/or selling these kinds of stories.

As said, they are a subgenre of the mystery/suspense genre. Their stories also deal with crime which includes murders, theft and so on. It is however to be noted that there are certain rules for writing cozy mysteries.

Violence Occurs Offstage:

This is arguably the number one rule in writing cozy mysteries. The actual violence is not much written in the story. For example, the story may begin with the victim already laying in the floor dead.

There would be no graphic description of how the victim died. The violent details are simply not described. If it was a robbery case, the story may begin with the object already stolen instead of the pages of the book detailing how the object was stolen.

If there would be violence happening on the latter part of the story, again it would not be shown. Again only the aftermath of the murder would be shown. But there would be no gory depictions of the crime. It would be only a sterile description of the murder scene.

If for example there would be violence against the protagonist of the story, it would be pretty sterile too. Like a simple nudging of the protagonist towards the edge of the stairs and so on.

As can be seen, the object of this rule is not to scare the reader or give them discomfort in reading the story, it’s more like the authors of this book intends to not offend the delicate sensibilities of the reader.

Sex Occurs Offstage:

As can be seen from the onset, the readers of these kinds of books are easily offended. It is to be noted that what may seem normal and permissible to others is not at all acceptable to these readers according to their sensibilities.

We already touched one subject which is not readily acceptable to the readers of cozy mysteries, which is violence. The next is sex. I do not know if the readers of these stories are puritanical in their way of thinking towards sex, but it is one of the rules in writing these stories.

Graphic depictions or portrayals of sex in these books are not allowed. I am not the maker of the rules, I just tell them. So, if you have a story where the graphic depiction of sex is integral to the story, don’t classify your book as a cozy mystery lest you get backlash from cozy mystery readers.

Though sex is a no-no for the stories, characters that are sexy are allowed in the book. Even a naughty dialogue is allowed, just not dirty. That is why you should analyze any sexy character you add in the story.

It might seem stupid, but I feel I should remind you that graphic depictions of women’s abuse in the form of rape for example is a no-no in these stories. To be repetitive, you need to remember the word ‘sterile’ whenever you are writing these stories.

The Main Protagonist Is Usually An Amateur:

As compared to hardboiled mystery/suspense mysteries with graphic violence and sex, where the main protagonist is an officer of the law or a professional crime solver like a private detective, the protagonist in cozy mysteries are amateurs.

These protagonists could be professional housewives, retired elder person, or someone engaged in occupations that does not deal with crime at all. Think of a female cook (She’s almost always a female, isn’t she?), who just happens to stumble on crimes repeatedly.

This may be to the subgenre’s desire to appeal to the homebody type of person as a reader. By using ordinary people, they make it seem that their readers are the protagonist in the story solving crimes in their spare time.

This means that police procedures are thrown off the window in place of amateurish sleuthing. There is no CSI or FBI type investigations that are done. Rather, the protagonist relies usually on interviews and gossip to solve the crime.

Intimate Characters And Settings:

Another thing that is a staple of cozy mysteries are their intimate characters and settings. Since the protagonist does not have the budget of the police or its resources, conveniently the crimes that happen have suspects who are readily available for the protagonist to interview and analyze.

The settings too are intimate, like the protagonist being trapped in a hotel or a vacation spot under heavy rain when the crime happens. Considering that the protagonist has no real power to investigate or detain suspects, these settings are convenient backdrops for the story.

Agatha Christie is considered a great inspiration of many cozy mystery authors. Her books are not graphically infused with a lot of violence and sex. Rather, she makes you think from a list of suspects as to who is the criminal.

This formula has been nurtured and sterilized over the years to appeal to a more delicate readership who are more interested in whodunnit rather than graphic sex or violence. And these delicate readers are many in numbers.

This is the reason why cozy mysteries are popular, because there are many delicate readers who abhor graphic depictions of sex and violence. Just Google the search keywords: ”are cozy mysteries popular” and you would see many articles answering the question with a resounding yes.

In these articles you would see recommendations of which authors are the prominent ones, all the names I have seen are women’s names. It might be due to the fact that cozy mystery writers are women writing to women readers as well.

But although the articles are encouraging to cozy mystery writers, these online articles fail to give hard numbers on the popularity and profitability of writing cozy mysteries. Perhaps if television shows are to be the basis, these articles are correct.

Perhaps one of the best example of made for television cozy mysteries is the television series Murder She Wrote which stars Angela Lansbury. In fact in many of the articles I read about cozy mysteries, her television show is always mentioned.

Her television show has the cozy mystery formula all written in their stories. No graphic violence or sex, an amateur sleuth and intimate characters & people. The show is clearly a goldmine for cozy mystery plots.

The television ran for several seasons when it was first shown and continues to be shown on cable rerun channels. This proves the tremendous popularity of such television shows which has this cozy mystery story formula.

It is perhaps very important to note that cozy mysteries are tapping the vast numbers of women readers. If you are a woman author, you have a distinct advantage of being able to attract women readers just because you can associate better with your readers.

This must be the reason why the cozy mysteries writing industry is almost sorely composed of women writers. But don’t despair just because you are a man and want to write cozy mysteries.

Agatha Christie for example might be a woman, but she has a man portraying the lead protagonist in her books, Hercule Poirot. So it is entirely acceptable for a man to write and become successful with cozy mystery books.

If you think writing cozy mysteries is easy just because they are more sterile compared to the hardboiled mystery/suspense books, think again. I tried to see if I can write a cozy mystery and I soon found out that writing such stories does not come automatically for me.

It maybe because I am constantly exposed to hardboiled mystery/suspense stories with plenty of violence and sex where the hero is a near perfect killing machine who travels to faraway exotic places.

Clearly what I am exposed to, are not cozy mysteries. They are action movies and stories by the likes of James Bond or police drama on television. I can’t simply imagine writing a story where I don’t engage the protagonist in a certain level of violence.

Writing James Bond type stories are relatively easy for me to do. I have enough exposure to television and movies to write such stories. Clearly, writing cozy mysteries requires that I watch television series reruns such as Murder She Wrote.

And this could be hard. My mother, a retired senior woman find watching and reading such cozy mysteries boring. She simply can’t relate although she is a target reader and watcher of such stories by television executives and book publishers.

What I am getting at is this: You can write cozy mysteries if you have been exposed to a certain level with cozy mystery books, television shows and movies. So If you plan to write cozy mysteries, better start doing so.

As previously stated, cozy mysteries are dominated by women authors and readers. If you are a man, there could be a hindrance for you of being accepted just because you are a male author.

But do not despair, you can still write cozy mysteries if you are a man. You can use a pen name for example. It might sound funny but there are male and female authors who use both male and female pen names because they perceive that they won’t be accepted in their current gender based pen name.

Another thing you should consider is that cozy mysteries are not easy to write if you are not used to the rules of cozy mystery writings. It takes time to gain the required writing skills. You should be in the first place passionate about cozy mysteries otherwise writing such stories could be difficult to you because your heart is not into it.

Have you ever watched a soap opera where there is a crime or murder that happened? You can be sure that a great deal of the story or the series revolves around capturing the unknown criminal.

I know I am showing my age but there used to be a television show called Dallas when I was a child. It is a soap opera about a very rich family of oil barons in Texas. It was a top rating show and many viewers watch it throughout the world.

There is a scene there where one of the main characters in the story was shot with a gun. His name is JR and he is very hated character although popular. The episode where he was shot became one of the most watched episode in television history.

The succeeding episodes then revolves around knowing who shot JR and are also well watched. Although the show is a drama series, it practically became a cozy mystery show while JR’s shooting goes unsolved.

So we can say that cozy mysteries are like hyper soap operas based on this example. In fact, there are many drama shows with an element of cozy mystery in them. Again, drama watchers are mostly women and they tend to gossip about them.

If you are writing cozy mysteries consider the drama element of your stories. A lot of your readers want to see this. This might be the reason why they are not so particular with the graphic violence and sex. They might want to see more drama instead.

Although I am not immersed in the world of the cozy writing industry, its proponents who are particularly women testify to the fact of its popularity. Although there are no hard numbers available, industry insider confirm that cozy mysteries are popular especially with women.

You must follow certain rules when writing cozy mysteries. Unless you are familiar with cozy mystery stories, you might find a hard time writing them. But don’t despair, just like anything it can be learned and mastered.

When Writing Becomes Deadly.