How to Write an Obituary That Actually Works
You think writing an obituary is just listing dates and facts. It's not. I've seen families spend hours on something that ends up buried on a webpage nobody reads. The difference between a forgettable notice and one people actually remember comes down to a few things most people get wrong. I wrote my grandfather's obituary when I was twenty-three. We had him listed as surviving by his mother, sister, and two dogs. He also had three kids from a previous marriage we weren't mentioning because family dynamics were complicated. That omission came back to bite us when people showed up to the service and asked why his other family wasn't acknowledged. I learned quickly that an obituary is a legal-adjacent document in many cases, and leaving people out can cause real problems. The approach that works is methodical. You start with the basics - full legal name, date of death, place of death if comfortable sharing. Then you move to biographical facts: birth date, place of birth, where they lived most of their life. That's the skeleton. The rest is fleshing it out with enough detail that someone who never met this person can understand who they actually were.
Most templates you find online are terrible. They make everything sound the same. "Beloved husband and devoted father" tells me nothing. I've written obituaries for people who lived extraordinary lives using exactly that language, and then the details in the second paragraph did all the work. A guy who built three houses with his own hands in his retirement years is more interesting than a generic "hard worker." Specificity wins every time. Here's the part nobody warns you about. Obituaries have different standards depending on where they're published. Local newspapers often charge by the line or by the word. I've seen people pay $400 for a 300-word piece because they didn't know the pricing structure. The workaround is to write the full version first, then cut it down for the newspaper version, and keep the long one for the funeral home website and social media. Don't skip that step. Another issue that catches people off guard: some states require specific language in death notices. If you're handling a funeral where the family wants to run a formal notice in addition to the obituary, check your state's requirements. In places like Texas and Florida, there are statutory forms for death announcements. Mixing up a regular obituary with a statutory death notice can cause delays with the funeral director. I once spent two hours on the phone with a county clerk's office because we'd submitted the wrong format for probate purposes. Just ask the funeral home. They deal with this stuff daily and will know the local rules.
When it comes to the content itself, focus on what made this person distinct. I recommend writing down three to five specific memories or traits before you start drafting. Not "she was kind" but "she taught me to bake sourdough bread every Sunday for three years." Not "he served his country" but "he spent twenty-two years in the Coast Guard, including six months stationed in Guam during the recession." Concrete details are what stick. The survivor list is another area where people make mistakes. Include living immediate family members and predeceased relatives if that feels right for the family. Some families prefer to list everyone. Some prefer to keep it brief. There's no universal rule, but be aware that omitting a child or spouse from the survivor list has been the source of serious family conflicts after deaths. I've seen it happen more than once. When in doubt, ask the closest family member what they want included rather than deciding yourself. Serve organizations, volunteer work, hobbies, and community involvement matter here. These are the sections that turn a dry biographical sketch into something that captures a life. If the person was involved in their church, or ran a youth sports league, or spent thirty years at the same company, mention it. One sentence each is usually enough. You don't need a resume.
Get the Full Details
Funeral service details go at the end. Date, time, location, and whether the service is public or private. If there's a memorial donation preference instead of flowers, include that too. Some families prefer it stated explicitly. Other families feel it sounds cold, so read the room. The editing phase is where most people rush. Read it aloud before submitting. If you stumble over a sentence, rewrite it. If something sounds like something you'd say about a colleague rather than a parent or grandparent, adjust the tone. The voice should match how the family wants this person remembered. One thing I wish someone had told me: get the spelling of every name right before publication. I once published an obituary with my grandmother's maiden name misspelled. She had spent her whole life owning that name through marriage and divorce and rebuilding, and we got it wrong. It felt awful. Triple-check everything, including middle names and suffixes. The funeral director usually has the death certificate, which is the authoritative source for legal names.
If you need a starting point, a basic obituary structure looks like this: identification paragraph, biographical paragraph, personal characteristics and activities paragraph, survivor paragraph, service details paragraph. That's it. You can expand or contract each section based on the person's life and the space available. Most good obituaries run between 200 and 600 words. Longer pieces work for people with particularly full lives or for online publications where length isn't constrained by print costs. There's no formula that makes grief easier. Writing someone's obituary is still hard no matter how many times you do it. But having a clear method means you can focus on the emotional work instead of wondering if you're doing it right.
