COSY MYSTERY BLOG
5 key steps to writing a cozy mystery…
Ena Fitzbel tells you everything!
Have you heard of cozy mystery? This term is used to describe police comedy.
Which expression has every chance of sounding like an oxymoron – what an ugly word! I promise, it will be the last one.
Indeed, since when has a thriller been an invitation to relax?
And yet, this is the mission that this sub-genre of detective novel has set for itself.
To entertain us, even if one or more deaths punctuate the story.


Let's start with a little history.

The term cozy mystery (note that Americans write cozy with a z, not an s) was born in Great Britain in the 1960s. Before that, there was no specific term to describe police investigations told with humor and conducted by amateurs (women in most cases). As an example, let me quote Agatha Christie's Miss Marple Mysteries , dating from the 1930s, in which a sedentary old lady solves mysteries. I also recommend The Proteroe Affair – the first volume –, a text written in the first person singular that will surprise you with its modernity.
Over time, the genre has asserted itself, attracting more and more fans. The author MC Beaton gave it its letters of nobility in the 1990s with, among others, the now famous Agatha Raisin . Translated all over the world, they only arrived in France very late since the first volume of the series was only published here in 2016. Since then, the cozy mystery has continued to attract French-speaking readers, in search of lightness.
With the help of Rimbaud, her four-legged companion, Jade leads the investigation.
For my part, I only started reading them well after I had written Le curieux manoir de tante Aglaé , volume 1 of my cosy mystery series set in Brittany. In short, I was like Mr Jourdain – in Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme by Molière – who wrote prose without being aware of it. How is that possible, you might ask? Do I have clairvoyant gifts? Not at all! I was simply brought up on television soap operas such as Castle, Arabesque, Pour l'Amour du risque , and I'm forgetting some. As a child, I loved Alice the Detective in the Green Library, and delighted in the thought of the gargantuan tea parties of Enid Blyton's Famous Five in the Pink Library.
Now that I've caught the cozy mystery bug, I have no choice but to write them... and read a lot of them. Alas, the more I devour them, the fewer they become. There's no shortage of foreign titles, but few are translated into French. And when they are, it's often thanks to artificial intelligence, with the quality issues that we know about. As for texts in French, they are not legion. Isn't that a reason for us French authors to sharpen our pens and write cozy mysteries that are truly our own?
Step One: Choose Your Main Character
Whether you tell your story in the first or third person singular, the hero of your cozy mystery will always be at the heart of the plot. His actions and motivations will shape the scenario. He is the key element of the story, which he will punctuate while imposing the pace. Because he is the one who will lead the investigation.
It is essential that your hero has no connection with the police. The less he knows about the tricks of the detective trade, the more accessible he will be to the reader. And don't let this assumption limit your creativity! Novelists before you have not hesitated to appropriate main characters as unexpected as the former German Chancellor Angela Merkel or the late Queen Elizabeth II.
I can't recommend enough that you opt for an ordinary citizen. Preferably a woman, in order to arouse empathy among female readers, who are big consumers of cozy mysteries. Rather unlucky in life, your hero will be a magnet for trouble. Trouble will rain down on him from all sides. Luckily, this amateur that the police underestimate will be able to unravel the plot, most often thanks to unconventional methods.
Before defining the body shell of your main character, you will make sure to provide it with a structure organized according to these three axes: weakness, need and desire. This general advice is not to be neglected. Because even if the atmosphere of a cozy mystery is light, the psychology of the hero must be worked on.

Jade and Rimbaud on the beach at Foisic.

In Aunt Aglaé's Manor Investigations , my heroine Jade Beaumont is struck by a curse that ruins her life. She never finishes what she starts, such is her weakness . Since her earliest childhood, all her projects have been doomed to failure. Thus, at twenty-six years old, she still has not obtained a diploma or a job, which almost leads her to think that she has earned her nickname of "headless duck".
Without wanting to be like her brother or sister, she would like to experience the same social success as them. This is her need . Ah, if only she could earn the respect of her parents! When she inherits her great-aunt Aglaé's mansion, she sees it as an opportunity to improve her situation. Her desire : to renovate this old shack, then sell it to make a good profit and force the admiration of her loved ones.
The outlines of my heroine are thus drawn. Her position of inferiority and her need for recognition establish her objective. Which plays the role of trigger in the story. The action can then begin, supported by a series of disruptive elements, twists and revelations.
Step Two: Find a Welcoming Setting

Foisic: somewhere in Brittany, between Quimper and Vannes.
Why not focus on the plot instead, you might ask? At the risk of disappointing you, I'll tell you that it can wait. Your novel will never be a cozy mystery without a soft setting to welcome it. You need to anchor it in a cozy cocoon. A rural setting, a village, a cruise ship are all perfect for this. Immediately abandon the idea of setting it in 1950s Chicago. Okay, we're not against a corpse or two, but violence and bloodshed are absolutely forbidden. Similarly, don't make your novel a political instrument or a tool to raise awareness of international issues. Your reader is looking above all to escape from a heavy daily life, don't give them the blues.
For the Investigations at Aunt Aglaé's Manor , I chose a tiny village in Brittany. Don't look, you won't see it on any map. This tiny island of heterogeneous houses attached to a cliff and bordering a sheltered bay comes straight from my imagination. Foisic – that's its name – would not be this warm setting without its equally fictitious inhabitants. So I took pleasure in adding them, starting with those you would expect to meet in a place of this type: a mayor, a healer, a hairdresser, a priest, a postwoman, an ironmonger, and so on.
Step Three: The Hero's Sidekicks
Our hero would be nothing more than a drifting boat if he didn't have acolytes to support him. What would Sherlock Holmes be without Doctor Watson, Tintin without Snowy, Hercule Poirot without Captain Hastings? Nothing, nada. Who would the hero of a cozy mystery confide his doubts and suspicions to if he were working alone? Without a faithful companion at his side, he would quickly go round in circles. And the reader would witness a storm under a skull rather than a constructive exchange aimed at catching the culprit.
In Investigations at Aunt Aglaé's Manor , Jade is always accompanied by Rimbaud , a mischievous dachshund. But we can all agree that a conversation with a dog is likely to resemble a monologue. So I chose other sidekicks for my heroine.
Corentin , a young orphan, and his uncle Alban, a very charming teacher, assist Jade in her investigations.
From the third volume, Irène Beaumont , my heroine's mother, as well as Joseph Jégou, the blundering policeman, join them.
Each of these characters contributes their stone to the building, collecting clues and proposing avenues for reflection. Given their complementary characters, they amuse the reader. As would the alliance of a gentle dreamer with a down-to-earth being, or that of a grumpy person with a happy-go-lucky person.

Rimbaud, Jade's dachshund.

Corentin and Rimbaud.

Irene, Jade's mother, and Rimbaud.
Step four: humor mixed with kindness

Joseph Jégou, the blundering policeman.
In cozy mysteries, we tend to prefer humor to action, the goal being to make people laugh. The problem is that there is nothing more subjective than humor. No one laughs at the same things. Some of us will laugh out loud at videos of prankster animals where others will remain unmoved.
Without going into details that would lead me to quote Kant, Freud or Nietzsche, I would simply advise you to target an audience limited to yourself. In short, have fun writing your novel. The reader will not necessarily adhere to your humor, but if you manage to transmit to him this crazy energy that has inhabited you throughout your composition, you will have fulfilled your contract. Never lose sight of the fact that, even if it is not always understood, laughter is contagious.
Wit, mockery, self-mockery, comic situations and even caricatures are all tools at your disposal. However, avoid ridiculing your hero. His role is to advance the plot, not to play the clown on duty.
In Investigations at Aunt Aglaé's Manor , Jade Beaumont will not experience humiliations such as slipping on a banana skin or having a bucket of water thrown over her head. I have entrusted the heavy task of cheering up the reader to zany or candid secondary characters. First, there is Rimbaud, my heroine's faithful dachshund. He never misses an opportunity to relieve his bladder on the feet of those who call him a sausage on legs. Then come the Prigent brothers, tasked with repainting the manor bequeathed by great-aunt Aglaé. Slow with the paintbrush, agile with the fork, they never work on an empty stomach. As a result, Jade serves as their canteen girl. Joseph Jégou, the assistant to the chief brigadier of Foisic, has nothing to envy them. You could die of being more clumsy than him!
Whatever type of humor you adopt, avoid meanness at all costs . Your novel should take place in a climate of benevolence .
Step Five: The Plot (Finally!)
The plot of a cozy mystery is no different from that of a detective novel. There will be one or more deaths, secrets, mystery and of course a culprit to unmask. But as previously stated, there can be no violence, and even less sex scenes. If there must be romance between the hero and another character, it is preferable that it takes its time… all its time. Disappointed? Well, we don't read cozy mysteries to get our minds worked up.
But back to our plot. I recommend that you build it backwards. Once you have established who the victim, the murderer, and the red herrings will be, you can begin. One last piece of advice before we let you get to work on your novel: if you plan on writing a series, it would be a good idea to enrich it with a family secret or a subplot that would unravel over the course of the volumes.
Up to you !

Mystery at the Foisic cemetery!