Writing Obituaries That Actually Get Published
The Virginian-Pilot has shifted noticeably over the last few years in how it handles obituary content. The older model was the standard death notice: born, died, survived by, funeral home. That still exists, but the editorial line now clearly favors narrative obituaries that read like short biographies. If you work with them directly, you will hear the editor say the word "compassionate storytelling" regularly. It means the piece needs character, not just facts. I wrote my first proper obituary for the Pilot about four years ago for a colleague. I assumed it would be straightforward. It was not. Here is what I learned after doing a handful. The submission process happens through their official online form or by emailing the obituary desk directly. You fill out a basic template first. Then they usually call or email back asking for a longer narrative version if they think the family wants one published in the paper rather than just the digital memorial page. The timeline runs roughly three to five business days from submission to publication, though weekend deaths can shift that. There is a fee for the longer narrative versions, and the cost scales with column width. Keep that in mind before you commit to a three-hundred-word piece.
What makes these obituaries work in practice is the interview segment. The family gets either a phone call or an email questionnaire from a dedicated obit writer. Be prepared for that. They will ask things like "what did they do on a Saturday morning?" or "name one thing they were stubborn about." These questions are not filler. The answers become the opening paragraph. That is the structural trick most families miss because they focus only on the vital statistics. I ran into a specific problem last year that I want to mention because it caught me off guard. A family submitted an obituary that included their deceased parent's complete employment history, including employer names, union affiliations, and a two-sentence project description. The editor flagged it and asked us to cut roughly sixty percent. The reason was simple space economics and readability, but the deeper reason was that the layout could not accommodate a full resume format. Our workaround was to take the employment section and convert it into a single tight sentence that captured the career arc, then move the meaningful detail about what the person actually enjoyed at work into the narrative paragraph. The result was shorter and noticeably better. The family was relieved once they saw it. Here is a counter-intuitive point that beginners do not usually expect. The most successful obituaries in this market are not the longest ones. The Pilot's print layout typically allocates obituaries in narrow columns, and a thousand-word essay will get trimmed aggressively by whoever edits on deadline. A four-hundred-to-six-hundred-word piece that hits three specific personal anecdotes, a clear life trajectory, and proper survivors list tends to make it into print intact. The digital version accepts more length, but even there the engagement drops sharply after about eight hundred words.
Another thing to keep in mind is the concept of the "hook paragraph." Editors prefer obituaries that open with a scene or a distinctive trait rather than the generic "was born on" opening. This is not about being clever. It is about giving the reader a reason to keep going past the first line. If the subject was known for showing up early to church with a thermos of coffee, that detail belongs in the first paragraph, not the third. The newspaper copy editors will usually preserve a strong opening and trim from the end, not the other way around. You should also know how to handle military service recognition properly. The Virginian-Pilot has a formal relationship with veteran advocacy groups, and they require documentation before publishing certain honors or flags. Submitting a DD-214 photocopy through the submission portal prevents delays. Without it, the editor will strip military references entirely rather than risk printing something inaccurate. That is a bottleneck that adds two or three days if you are not prepared. There are real limitations to this approach, and I want to be blunt about them. Narrative obituaries cost more than standard death notices. They also take longer to produce because the editorial team spends time on interviews and revisions. If a family needs something published within forty-eight hours due to service scheduling, the narrative option is usually not viable. In those cases, stick to the concise format and consider the digital memorial page for the longer story. The Pilot's website allows extended content without the same per-column pricing structure, which is a useful compromise when budget or time is tight.
Get the Full Details
A final practical note on tone. The compassionate storytelling model does not mean the piece needs to be uniformly glowing. Readers in Norfolk can tell when an obituary glosses over real complexity. It is acceptable to mention that the person struggled with addiction and was in recovery, or that there was estrangement with one sibling, without turning the obituary into a confessional. The editor's job is to keep the piece respectful and readable. Your job is to give them accurate information and let the narrative find its shape. Rushing the process or feeding the writer vague generalities is what produces generic obituaries that blend together. If you want to submit, start at the Virginian-Pilot website and locate the obituary submission portal. You can draft the full piece offline and paste it in, or answer their initial form and then elaborate in follow-up correspondence. Save a copy of everything you submit. The editorial staff changes shifts, and you want a clean record in case follow-up questions arrive days later. Most families finish the process in under a week if they respond promptly to the writer's request for additional details.
