Writing Obituaries That Actually Capture Someone's Life
When you sit down to write an obituary for a funeral home, the temptation is to list facts like a resume. Birthdate, surviving family, service time. That's not what people need. It's what the clergy needs for their notes, but it's not what the people reading it connect with. There's a real craft to this that most people don't recognize because they've only ever seen the templated versions. The obituaries that stick with someone aren't the polished ones with perfect grammar and balanced sentences. They're the ones where you can hear the voice of the person being remembered. I learned this the hard way about three years ago when I was helping a family with their matriarch's obituary. The problem I ran into was that the template at our local funeral home had about forty fields to fill out. Character references, military service, club memberships, hobbies, favorite foods, the whole checklist. We spent nearly two hours trying to fit Mrs. Gunderson into this rigid format and by the end it read like a census report. Her daughter said it didn't sound like her mother at all. That's when I figured out that the structure needs to serve the story, not the other way around.
The workaround I use now is simple. Before opening any template or form, I spend maybe ten minutes just asking the family one question: what's the one thing people would remember if they were telling a story about this person at a dinner table? Not a fact. A moment. For Mrs. Gunderson it turned out to be the time she showed up to Thanksgiving with three gallons of homemade pickled beets because "you never know who might need them." That became the anchor. Everything else grew from that.
What Makes an Obituary Work Beyond the Basics
Most people think an obituary is supposed to be respectful and complete. It needs to be both of those things, but those are table stakes. The ones that actually resonate do something more specific. They give readers a reason to feel something other than mild acknowledgment that someone died. I've written obituaries for people who were beloved in their community and obituaries for people who were difficult, complicated, or both. The trick isn't to sanitize the difficult ones. That's where the actual humanity lives. A man I knew who was known for his sharp tongue and his sharper cooking. You write about the cooking, you write about how he'd critique your recipe while feeding it to you, and you mention the sharp tongue only in passing. The obituary becomes about a real person, not a monument. Here's what nobody tells you about working with funeral homes on this stuff. The staff are often overworked and under-resourced. They have systems in place because they need them, not because they care about the art of it. When I hand in a draft, I don't apologize for it being different from their template. I just say this is what the family asked for. Nine times out of ten they'll run with it because they'd rather deal with an accepted draft than a frustrated family wanting changes.
Get the Full Details
Practical Steps That Actually Matter
The first practical step is gathering material properly. I usually talk to at least three people who knew the deceased in different contexts. A coworker, a family friend, and a relative. Each one will remember something completely different. The coworker might mention how he arrived fifteen minutes early every single day for twenty years. The family friend will tell you about the road trip where everything went wrong and they still laughed. The relative might bring up something mundane like how she always watered the plants whether anyone asked her to or not. From those conversations, I pull out the concrete details and build a narrative thread. Not chronological. Narrative. The chronological approach is for the funeral program itself. The obituary needs a through-line that makes someone want to keep reading even though they're sad. Usually that's a trait, a passion, or a defining quality that came through in all three stories. Language matters more than people think. I tend toward plain American English with specific nouns and verbs. "He built cabinets" lands harder than "He was a skilled craftsman." "She sang off-key at church" beats "She had a joyful spirit." The specific details do the emotional work. Don't do the emotional work for the reader with abstract adjectives.
Common Mistakes I See Repeatedly
The biggest mistake is writing for the wrong audience. An obituary gets read by people who knew the person, people who vaguely knew them, and people who don't know them at all but are curious. If you write only for the insiders, you lose the broader audience. If you write only for strangers, you lose the people who shared memories with the deceased. Another mistake is making it too long. I've seen obituaries that go on for two full pages. Unless this was a public figure whose life intersects with documented history, a page and a half is probably the ceiling. People skim long text when they're already grieving. Keep it tight. The third mistake is forgetting about the living. An obituary isn't just about honoring someone. It's also a practical notice. Service time, location, whether donations are preferred over flowers, where the family wants visitors. I always put that at the end in a separate paragraph so it doesn't get lost in the biographical material. Families sometimes get calls about service details because someone buried that information inside a story about the deceased's childhood.
Working Within Constraints
Funeral homes sometimes have word limits based on their publishing partners or newspaper rates. I've dealt with tight spaces where I had to cut half my draft. The trick there is knowing what to cut. Adjectives go first. Vague praise goes next. Concrete details stay. If you can't say something with a specific detail, you probably don't need to say it at all. Sometimes the family wants to include information that doesn't fit in an obituary. A lengthy biography, a list of achievements, photos. That's fine. Put that on a memorial page or a printed program. The obituary has a different job. It's the headline, not the book. I've also found that taking a day before submitting the final draft helps. I read it aloud once, then I set it aside and come back to it. Things that looked good on the first pass often feel off after a few hours. This is especially true for names. I once had a whole draft with the wrong maiden name for a surviving sister. Caught it in the final review before submission.
When It Doesn't Work
Let me be straight about the limitations. This approach requires access to real stories and willing participants. If the family can't or won't share anything personal, you're going to end up with something generic regardless of your technique. Some families are very private. Some are so tangled in family conflict that getting a coherent narrative is impossible. In those cases, you fall back on the facts and make them as clear as possible. That's not a failure. It's just the reality. Also, not every funeral home wants this level of customization. Some prefer to keep everything within their template for consistency. That's their call. I've had good relationships with directors who understand the value and bad ones who see deviation as a problem. When you hit the bad one, you either adapt or find another route. Usually adapting is the easier path if you need the service. There's also the question of tone matching. A somber, traditional obituary might be what the family actually wants even if they could handle something more personal. Don't push your style on them. Your job is to help them express what they mean, not to make it interesting for you.
Resources and References
If you're looking for examples of well-written obituaries, the best source is usually local newspapers. The ones that get shared the most are the ones doing something right. Pay attention to which ones people comment on and which ones get ignored. There's a pattern. For template options, most funeral homes provide basic forms. You can also find good structures at memorial website platforms. Just remember that a template is a starting point, not a completion standard. Fill the fields, then add the human stuff on top. I've found that keeping a running document of notable phrases and details from past obituaries helps over time. When I'm stuck for how to describe someone's dedication to their work or their quiet kindness, I look back at previous pieces I've written or references I've collected. It builds a vocabulary for the kind of specificity that makes these things work.
