How Do You Write an Obituary?

Detailed Explanation

An obituary's job is to introduce a person to anyone who reads it: family who already know every story, but also distant relatives, old colleagues, and neighbours who only knew one part of their life. See the Obituaries & Funeral Notices hub for how this fits alongside the funeral notice and eulogy. Done well, it leaves all of them with a clearer, truer sense of who that person was.

What to include

Most well-written obituaries move through a similar arc, though nothing here is compulsory:

1. The announcement. Full name, age, place of residence, and date of death: often the only overlap with the funeral notice, which covers this same information for the practical announcement.
2. Early life. Where and when they were born, their family growing up, and anything formative: schooling, a defining early experience, where they grew up.
3. The shape of their adult life. Career, education, military service, or the work that occupied most of their years, briefly, unless it was central to who they were.
4. Relationships. Marriage or partnerships, children, grandchildren, named where the family wishes, in whatever configuration reflects the actual family (blended, chosen, or otherwise).
5. What they loved. Hobbies, passions, causes, humour, quirks: this is usually where an obituary starts to feel like the actual person rather than a résumé.
6. Who survives them, and who predeceased them. Common in more traditional obituary formats; increasingly optional as families favour a warmer, less formulaic style.
7. Service details or a note that the family has held a private service, and any request regarding flowers or donations in lieu.

Finding the right tone

The best obituaries read like someone who loved the person wrote them, not like a form was filled in. A few things help:

• Use specific detail over generic praise. "Spent every Sunday morning at the local market arguing good-naturedly with the same fruit seller for thirty years" tells you more than "he loved the community."
• Let some personality through, including humour if it fits. An obituary that sounds exactly like the person being remembered is a small gift to everyone who reads it.
• Write chronologically, but don't feel bound by strict formality. Many of the most memorable obituaries read closer to a short story than a form letter.
• Involve more than one family member if you can. Different people remember different decades, jobs, and sides of a person, and pooling memories (the same approach that helps with writing a eulogy) produces a fuller picture than one person writing alone.

Where obituaries are published

Newspapers (in a dedicated obituaries or tributes section), the funeral home's website, and dedicated online obituary or memorial pages are all common, and many families use more than one. An online version has the advantage of no length limit and can be shared directly by link, whereas print space is usually charged by length. See how much does it cost to publish an obituary or funeral notice for typical figures. A fuller online memorial is a natural next step for families who want the obituary to live somewhere permanent, with photos and space for others to add their own memories over time.

Things to Consider

• A complicated life doesn't need to be smoothed over or fabricated. Honest, gentle framing, acknowledging a difficult chapter without dwelling on it, usually serves the family and the person better than an obituary that reads as unrecognisable to anyone who actually knew them. If the relationship itself, not just the life, was difficult or estranged, see how do you write an obituary for someone you had a difficult relationship with for guidance specific to that situation.
• There's no obligation to list every relationship, job, or achievement. Families sometimes feel pressure to be exhaustive; a shorter obituary that captures the person well beats a long one that reads like a list.
• Photos matter. A well-chosen recent photo, and sometimes one from earlier in life, does real work alongside the words, so check the publication's requirements for format and size.
• Revisit it before publishing. Read the draft aloud, and if possible have a second family member check names, dates, and relationships. Errors in an obituary are difficult to correct once published (see can you correct or update an obituary or funeral notice after it's published if one slips through).

Common Mistakes

• Writing it like a résumé. Job titles and dates without any texture leave readers with facts but no sense of the person. See how to write a eulogy for the same lesson applied to the spoken tribute.
• Trying to cover absolutely everything. An obituary that lists every job, hobby, and relationship in equal weight usually reads as cluttered; choose what genuinely mattered.
• Leaving it entirely to one person under time pressure. Gathering a few memories from others first, even briefly, almost always produces a richer and more accurate result.
• Forgetting to proofread names and relationships. These errors are the ones families remember longest, and a careful second read prevents most of them.