The Anatomy of Cozy Charm

[This article first appeared in the November/December 2024 issue of Writer's Digest magazine.]

Some cozy mysteries are playful and humorous (despite a corpse or two). Others are erudite and resolute. Wherever your cozy falls on the spectrum of light-hearted to serious, all successful cozies are laden with charm. While the concept of charm is intangible, and thus hard to define, we know it when we see it because of how it makes us feel. Charm is soothing and homey. Reading a cozy mystery is as comforting as wearing a favorite old sweater on a cold winter day. 

Of the five factors that successful cozy mysteries share, three are clear-cut. While not necessarily easy to execute, the parameters are unambiguous. The other two, though, require deft handling. Here are the three that are straightforward: 

The two remaining factors are: 

To add that elusive quality of charm to your cozy mystery, focus on your sleuth and your setting.

Think of the most charming person you know, then ask yourself why that person came to mind. What is it they do or say that makes you think of them as charming? Here’s what I bet you came up with: They care about people in general and you in particular. They treat everyone with dignity and respect, including themselves. They’re strong, but not domineering. They’re generous, but not a pushover. Imbue your sleuth with these qualities, and you’ll have created a character readers adore. The trick is translating these abstract concepts into concrete behaviors and attributes—to show, not tell. 

First, consider why your sleuth is good at detective work. Is it their observation skills, their specialized expertise, or their understanding of human nature—or some combination of the three? As you review the following examples, think about how these jobs and leisure activities might facilitate a sleuth ferreting out secrets, the heart of detective work, all while showcasing their charm. 

Whatever their occupation or avocation, charming amateur sleuths show genuine interest in the people and situations around them. When chatting, your sleuth maintains eye contact. She doesn’t scan the room looking for someone more interesting to talk to. He doesn’t check his phone while having lunch with a pal. On a video call, she wouldn’t look down, surreptitiously reading an email while her friend is describing a fight with her husband. 

To understand how to translate this imperative—focus on the here and now—into concrete actions, adapt the protocol known as active listening. While this four-step process is designed to increase communication efficacy, sleuths who use this approach don’t merely get people talking and keep them talking, both of which crucial, they themselves are valued as caring, concerned citizens.

“Active listening” refers to a communication technique developed by Dr. Thomas Gordon in the 1950s. He coined the term in his book, Leader Effectiveness Training. When a sleuth uses words and phrases such as these at each of the four steps of the active listening process, readers perceive him or her as charming. 

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Your sleuth should also employ “minimal encouragers,” short phrases that motivate people to confide in him. Minimal encouragers subliminally signal your sleuth’s interest in what people have to say, which is, of course, a primary component of charm. Minimal encouragers include actions like smiling, nodding, and employing verbal reactions, such as: 

Another reliable way of adding charm is to capitalize on your sleuth’s ability to intuit what people are truly thinking or feeling. By mirroring the observed or unspoken thought or emotion in dialogue, the person your sleuth is talking to will feel respected and valued, core ingredients of charm. For instance, let’s say a character named Sally confides to your sleuth, Carole, that a date stood her up. Carole might reflect the unspoken emotion with an empathetic reaction. An important note: It’s not enough for Carole to know Sally got stood up—she needs to know how Sally feels about it. Is Sally furious, embarrassed, sad? Carole, reading between the lines, registering Sally’s tone of voice, listening for what isn’t said, might respond to Sally’s confidence by saying: 

A charming sleuth would never: 

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Among the most effective ways to add charm is to give your amateur sleuth a beloved pet. In Paula Munier’s Mercy Carr series, Mercy adopts Elvis, a Belgian shepherd with canine PTSD. Morgan Carter, a bookstore owner and cryptozoologist, in Annelise Ryan’s Monster Hunter mystery series, adores Newt, a rescue dog of uncertain lineage. Cats are even more popular in cozies than dogs, including Moishe in Joanne Fluke’s Hannah Swenson’s mystery series and Sneaky Pie Brown, the co-author, with Rita Mae Brown, of the Mrs. Murphy mysteries. Anything that humanizes your sleuth and shows their caring nature will work to add charm. Give them a volunteer job at a local nonprofit. Have them work at a community garden. 

Weaving these qualities and behaviors together creates a full-bodied, believable, and charming character, and those are the sleuths readers adore.

Most cozy mysteries take place in self-contained communities. This guideline serves several charm-inducing purposes, both logistical and thematic. 

From a logistical perspective, charm derives from contented familiarity. Knowing that character A takes a walk along the river at 8 o’clock sharp every morning or that character B, locally renowned for his moody paintings of meadows, sets up his easel on the village green on foggy days, provides welcome predictability, a comforting rhythm to daily life. In addition, this kind of consistency ensures your sleuth will have plenty of suspects that she knows well to consider—and she’ll know where to find them. Your sleuth also knows the lay of the land, the secret spots where people go to hide or brood. 

Thematically, cozies are, at their essence, stories about finding community. A place where people value you for who you truly are, where you don’t need to pretzel yourself to fit in. Dr. Brené Brown2, a research professor at the University of Houston and one of the world’s leading experts in making meaningful connections, puts it this way: “Fitting in and belonging are not the same thing. In fact, fitting in is one of the greatest barriers to belonging. Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be in order to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand, doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are.” When we feel valued for who we truly are, we’re charmed.

A bucolic hamlet. An English country house. An island resort. When it comes to choosing an insular location, the possibilities are endless. As you review the following locations (with corresponding examples), consider how each lends itself to the requisite logistics and supports the theme of belonging. 

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You create this welcoming environment by adding elements to the setting that evoke comfort, delight, and serenity: the aroma of fresh-baked bread, a lake dotted with sun-sparks dancing on the surface, the soft feel of a cotton quilt, the taste of cinnamon in the homemade applesauce, a kitten’s purr. Notice that all five examples include sensory references. Writing these charming elements using sensory cues brings everyday items and events to life.

As you think about where to set your cozy mystery, start with determining your era and location. Do you want to set your mysteries in Rome at the turn of the century? Victorian England? The near future? 

Cozy mysteries don’t need to be set in the present. Historical cozies abound. Consider, for example, Margaret Frazer’s Sister Frevisse Medieval Mystery series, where the sleuth is a nun during the reign of Henry VI (Medieval England). In Sujata Massey’s Perveen Mistry mystery series Perveen Mistry is a young lawyer in 1920s Bombay, one of the first women admitted to the bar. 

You don’t even need to feature humans in your mystery for it to work as an über-charming cozy. In Juneau Black’s Shady Hollow mysteries, the sleuth is a newspaper reporter named Vera Vixen, a fox. The woodland setting, in an unnamed boreal forest, is home to a delightful array of quirky characters, from Gladys Honeysuckle, a gossipy hummingbird, to Joe, a moose with “quite a mug,” who runs the local coffee shop named Joe’s Mug, to a brown bear named Orville Braun, the deputy chief of police, and a parade of other critters each with a distinctive personality. Interestingly, Shady Hollow’s era is unclear, but we know it’s not contemporary, since Vera develops film in a darkroom, and no one uses a cellphone or computer. 

Whatever era and location you choose, identify familiar elements that enable readers to immerse themselves in your world.

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To bring a setting to life, add in information that goes beyond the physicality of a place. Yes, readers want to know the geography of the location, to smell the briny air at a seaside enclave, hear the rain pattering the metal roof at a mountain resort, feel the searing summer sun in a sleepy desert outpost, taste blackberries plucked from bushes in a California commune, and see palm fronds waving in a tropical oasis, but infusing your story with charm requires that you take a holistic view of the setting. Use the following four questions (and examples) to fire up your imagination.

1. What languages and dialects are spoken? Are there idioms, terminology, slang, or abbreviations specific to the region? Does everyone in the location know and use the local vernacular?

2. What are regional or local food favorites? Is there one resident's specialty that's renowned? Are there contests or competitions?

3. Is there a musical style or instrument common to the region? Are there regularly scheduled musical events?

4. What cultural or community events occur periodically or annually?

Bringing together seemingly disparate factors such as culture, language, habits, standards, values, customs, food, mores, pace of life, and so on, creates a delightful world readers can envision, a place they want to visit and where they’re glad to stay a while.

Recipes

Many cozies include references to food and drink, a crowd pleaser certain to engender kinship. Several actually include recipes. In Diane Mott Davidson’s Goldy Schulz mystery, Catering to Nobody, you’ll find recipes for “Goldy’s Marvelous Mayonnaise” and “Wild Man’s Wild Rice Salad,” among others. Laura Childs’s Lemon Curd Killer: A Tea Shop Mystery includes both recipes and “tea time tips.” Mia P. Manansala’s Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mysteries feature Filipino American cuisine that the Washington Post described as “mouth-watering.” 

Quirky Characters 

Cozies usually include an ensemble cast comprised of quirky characters. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, quirky refers to a personality attribute, behavior, or mannerism that’s “unusual in [an] interesting or appealing way.” Consider how characters like these would spice up your cozy mystery: 

Puns

Many cozy mystery titles include puns. These titles don’t simply identify the book’s theme or focus, it also alerts readers that a humorous and light-hearted tone will balance the sadness of the murder. Consider these examples as you work on your own thematic puns. 

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Cozy mystery readers want to feel part of a caring community. You create this allure by building a delightful, self-contained world populated by an engaging sleuth to create the kind of charm that knocks readers socks off.

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