Cozy Mysteries discussion
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What do you think?
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Swearing in Cozies! No Way!
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Hard-boiled mysteries are usually R-rated, but not because they have cussing or sex in them. It's because of the violence and REALLY bad characters. Most hard-boiled mysteries actually contain little sex, and when they DO have it it's usually not graphic. A curse word doesn't a soft-boiled make either. I've read many cozies where the occasional "damn" or "hell" shows up. And they are MOST definitely cozies! I don't believe in rigid delineation.
I think the "rules" are more of a guideline or explanation not hard and fast. There are definitely cozies with swearing and maybe even some on page sex.Authors should write whatever they want. They may not be the ones deciding the category their books are put into.
I read a lot of so called cozies and very few of them actual fix the definition of a cozy. I review on what the author has written not on hoew I would like the story to go. I am amaze of all the different definitions of a cozy.
I'm not going to give a book a bad review because of profanity (and "damn" and "hell" don't count as profanity to me). If saying "shit" or "fuck" is the appropriate reaction to a situation, it's the appropriate reaction.Just because YOU won't give a book a good review because of the language doesn't mean nobody else will.
Elaine, you're assuming everybody swears, or that they use the 'F' word when they do. And if people do swear, not everyone has been brought up to say it. So in what situation is it appropriate? I broke my foot and didn't use it. It wouldn't have gone over well in our household, so it never became a daily staple of mine to do so. I can't count the times I've seen damn or hell, it's no big deal, and I wouldn't give a book a bad rating because of the language. I always take the entire book into consideration, and it's usually plot holes or writing that warrants it from me. But I don't believe using the F-bomb is appropriate in cozies. It's not an "anything goes" genre; you wouldn't expect explicit sex,either. That's why there ARE genres; so you can get an idea of what to expect before you read the book.
Linda wrote: "Cozies are meant to be G-rated. If it isn't G-rated, then it's considered a soft-boiled mystery or hard-boiled. In cozies, you say, "He swore," "He turned red and cussed," "He let out a string of p..."It's more than a little bit presumptuous to tell all the cozy readers in this group why we read cozies. Or that we will (should?) all write bad reviews if authors don't abide by a set of arbitrary rules you found on the internet. There are as many definitions of cozies as there are readers of them - This group has an entire discussion thread on that topic. I am not that rigid or inflexible in my reading.
No, I'm not assuming everybody swears but most people I know don't have a problem with language in books, even cozies. I'm sure that if I came home and found my home had been robbed my reaction would not be "oh my, I've been robbed" but a much stronger one.
Yes, there are genres but that doesn't mean that things from other genres don't slip in some times. Look at all the cozies with ghosts/vampires/witches.
I'm more likely to give a bad review (or give up on the book/story entirely) if it's filled with bad grammar, incorrect spelling, factual errors (I gave up on a story that had Gettysburg in Virginia. I'm Canadian and I know where Gettysburg is) or the author who thought people over 30 were old.
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Hopefully nobody was offended by my comment, I would never intentionally attack anyone. That being said, I agree that we all read cozies for different reasons, and of course, genres slip once in a while; it's a broad spectrum. I was merely stating that the F-bomb doesn't really seem to fit a cozy. I would think the author would know what he/she is writing, and would be able to get their point across without using certain words (they'd certainly see it when they wrote it). Agreed, if you came home and found your house robbed, you would have a strong reaction, who wouldn't? But they find dead bodies and don't say it, and that's pretty much the mother of garnering a strong reaction (lol)! Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and what would bother some wouldn't bother others. It's a fact in life that people swear, and generally I have no problem with it in cozies, but all I was saying was that personally I don't like the F-bomb. We all have our idea of 'who' the characters are, and if I see the main protagonist throwing the F-word around, I probably won't read any more by that author.
Nell wrote: "Linda wrote: "Cozies are meant to be G-rated. If it isn't G-rated, then it's considered a soft-boiled mystery or hard-boiled. In cozies, you say, "He swore," "He turned red and cussed," "He let out..."Touche', Nell! Couldn't agree with you more! What many consider "swear" words are not to me. I will agree that an "F-bomb" in a cozy would surprise me, but it would never make me stop reading it. To think that I would give a book a bad review because it didn't fit someone's rigid idea of what books in that genre should be is completely ludicrous! I rate and review books on what they "say" to me, how well they are written and researched and if it left me wanting more from the author. Rate it on whether it had a "bad" word in it or a little "horizontal hokey-pokey"? Hardly!
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An author has to make up his or her mind whether the story they're writing is a cozy or soft-boiled or hard-boiled. Otherwise they will be hurting themselves by getting some bad reviews from cozy mystery readers.