What is Cozy Fantasy?
Cozy Fantasy is an emerging sub-genre with no official definition. In many ways, that’s what I like most about it: the genre means different things to each reader and author.
For me, I was drawn to Cozy Fantasy during COVID when the bleakness of life made me want to escape to comforting fantasy worlds. The stories I love most have four main aspects:
Small Stakes
It is a frequent misnomer that Cozy Fantasy cannot have conflict. Every story has to have some conflict—or at least, purpose—in order to be worth telling. In this case, the stakes tend to simply be smaller in nature. Rather than saving the world from the Big Bad Overlord, Cozy Fantasy stories revolve around opening a coffee shop, getting a fresh start on life, or in the case of A Djinn’s First Wish, opening an animal sanctuary. To be clear, that isn’t to say cozy stories cannot have high stake moments, just that they must be used sparingly.
Happily Ever After
Like in romance novels, the HEA is a staple of cozy fantasy. In order for the story to leave the reader with a warm, cozy feeling, it must end on a happy note. There can still be bleak moments where all hope seems lost, but in the end the characters will prevail and everything will turn out alright.
Cozy Elements
Every Cozy Fantasy story I’ve read layers in elements that together build toward a overall vibe of warmth, comfort, and safety. These aspects can come in many forms. Through the setting, the cozy vibe can be established through the characters warming themselves by the fireplace on a cold winter day. Often, the tone is developed through activities the characters perform, such as knitting, baking, or reading a book. And of course, there’s food and beverages. Nothing says cozy like a hot cup of tea or a warm bowl of soup.
Avoidance of Darker Topics
In order for the warmth and comfort to shine through, Cozy Fantasy avoids darker topics such as graphic violence and sexual assault. Some cozy stories do include murder, but they are often referenced rather than shown explicitly, and only when necessary to move the plot forward.
This is the aspect of Cozy Fantasy I struggled with most while writing a Djinn’s First Wish. Hadi, the main character, spent hundreds of years in servitude. This leaves him with real trauma, and healing from it is core to his character arc. I wanted to do the topic justice by giving it the depth and gravity it deserves, while still striving to maintain a cozy vibe to the story.