An obituary is not a eulogy. It is a public document, filed with a newspaper or a funeral home, written under time pressure by a person who has just lost someone, and read by hundreds of acquaintances who need to know what happened and what comes next. It has a form. The form is not a literary one. Most obituaries that go badly go badly because the writer treated them like an essay rather than like a notice.
This piece is the practical one. It is the document I wish I had been handed when, at twenty-six, I was asked to write the obituary for my uncle on a Sunday morning with the paper's Tuesday deadline two days away. Below is the form, in the order the form wants. If you are writing a more personal piece to read at the service, how to write a eulogy is the companion guide; the two documents are different jobs.
What an obituary is for
Three jobs, in this order. First, to announce the death publicly, so that the wider community knows. Second, to provide the practical information for the service or memorial. Third, to honour the person, in a paragraph or two of life-story. The third job is the one that gets most of the attention in writing guides; in practice, the first two are what the obituary is for. The honouring is the part that makes it a piece of writing rather than a classified ad.
What always goes in: the eight required pieces
- Full legal name, plus the name they were known by.* "Margaret Elizabeth Whitford, known to everyone as Maggie." If the name they were known by is the only one most readers will recognise, use it in the headline.
- Age at death, and dates.* "Aged 78," with date of death. Date of birth is included by some papers and omitted by others — see the privacy section below.
- City of residence at the time of death.* Not the full street address; just the town or city.
- Names of immediate surviving family.* In conventional order: spouse, children (with the names of their spouses in parentheses), grandchildren by number, siblings, sometimes parents if living. "Predeceased by" follows for the family members who have already died.
- Where the person was born, and the broad arc of the life.* One to three sentences. Where born, schools attended only if relevant, work, military service if applicable, the through-line of the life. This is where most of the writing happens.
- Service information.* Date, time, and location of the funeral, memorial, or visitation. If there is no public service, the line is "a private family service will be held." If a celebration of life is planned for later, name the date if known.
- Where to send flowers, or what to give instead.* "In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to [the named charity], in her memory." The named charity matters; a generic "donate to charity" line is not useful to the reader.
- A single closing sentence of character, if there is space.* One line — the recurring phrase, the kindness, the habit. Optional, but it is the line that makes the notice human.
The headline and the photo
Most papers will run a small headline with the person's name and age, and a photo if one is provided. The photo should be a clear face — not a vacation shot, not a group photo. A portrait taken in the last decade is best; very old photos can confuse readers who knew the person more recently. The paper will print it small, so detail is lost. A clear, well-lit face works.
What never goes in: the seven things to leave out
An obituary is a public record that can be searched, scraped, and republished for decades. Identity-theft rings actively comb obituaries for the personal information they need to open accounts in the name of the deceased. The list below is the privacy floor.
- The full date of birth, including the year.* Month and year is fine; full DOB is what fraudsters need.
- The mother's maiden name.* This is a security question on most banks.
- The home address.* A town is enough.
- Any account or social security number.* Obvious, but it still happens in self-written obituaries.
- Cause of death without family consent.* Particularly for sudden, violent, or stigma-loaded deaths. The family decides what is named in print.
- Estranged or contentious family members named negatively.* Either name them with the rest, or do not name them at all. The obituary is not the place to settle the family.
- Old grievances, embarrassing stories, in-jokes that require explaining.* The room is wider than you think; treat it like a public document, which it is.
Where to file it, and what it costs
Three places, usually in this order. The funeral home publishes the obituary on their website, often the same day; this is the version that gets shared on social media. The local paper publishes a paid notice in print and online — the rate depends on length and whether a photo is included. The third place is legacy.com, which mirrors many newspaper obituaries automatically and is the most searchable index for anyone trying to find an obituary later.
Major metropolitan papers — the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times — charge significantly more than community papers, often $1,000 to $3,000 for a substantial notice. Community and regional papers run $50 to $500. Many families file a short paid notice in print and a longer free version online; this is a sensible split, and the longer online version is the one most people will actually read.
The funeral director will help
If you are working with a funeral home, the funeral director will offer to file the obituary on your behalf and may have a draft template. Use the template as a checklist for what to include, but write the prose yourself. A funeral-home-templated obituary is recognisable, and not in a good way. The director's job is logistical; the writing is yours.
Writing the life paragraph
The middle of the obituary — the one to three sentences about the life — is the part that takes real time. The same principle that governs a eulogy governs this paragraph: specifics. Not "she loved her family," but "she had a standing Wednesday phone call with each of her three children, in birth order, and never missed one." Not "he was an avid gardener," but "he kept thirty-seven varieties of tomato in raised beds behind the garage and gave the surplus to the neighbours every August."
Pick the one true specific that the obituary readers will recognise. People who knew the person will read it and say, yes, that is her. People who did not know the person will read it and understand who she was. That recognition — from both sides at once — is the entire writing task. Everything else is the form filling itself in around it.
The honest tone
Obituaries get into trouble when they reach. "Beloved by all," "never met a stranger," "a life well lived" — these are the phrases that signal the writer ran out of specifics and reached for the warm-bath language of the form. The best obituaries are quieter. They name a person, in their specific habits, and let the reader recognise them. They do not insist on the importance of the life; they let the life speak.
After the obituary is filed and the service has happened, families often gather the obituary, the eulogy, and a few of the cards and photographs into a memorial book — bound properly, in one copy, on the shelf. The obituary names the death; the book holds the life. The journal's note on what a memorial book actually is and on the rainbow bridge, said quietly gets into that form more carefully. If you are also writing notes back to the people who sent cards, what to write in a sympathy card works in reverse too.
A practical timeline
Within 24 hours of the death, the funeral home will ask for the obituary draft. Within 48 hours, the print paper needs a final, formatted version with the photo file attached. Within 72 hours, the funeral home and legacy.com will have the online version live. Most families work backwards from the funeral date: the obituary needs to be published at least 48 hours before the service so that distant friends and family have time to travel. If the service is on a Saturday, the obituary should be filed by Wednesday.
The most common mistake is waiting too long to write it. Even a rough draft, written the morning after the death, is better than a polished draft written too late to reach the people who needed to know. Get the facts down first — name, dates, family, service. The life paragraph can be added in revision. If you are planning the service itself, the journal's note on celebration of life ideas covers the wider question of how the day is shaped.
The voice the obituary should be in
Third person, past tense, restrained. "Margaret Whitford, of Concord, died on Tuesday after a long illness. She was 78." Not "our beloved mother has gone to her eternal rest." The restraint is the respect. The obituary is the public document; the heart belongs in the eulogy, the cards, and the memorial book. The clearer the obituary, the easier it is to read on the worst morning of the week, when a former colleague opens the paper and recognises the name.
When the deceased is well-known in the community
For a person who held a public-facing role — a teacher, a doctor, a small-business owner, a long-serving volunteer — the obituary should name the role specifically and name the institution. "Taught fourth grade at Lincoln Elementary for thirty-one years." The community will see the obituary and know exactly which Mrs. Whitford it is, and former students will write to the family. Specificity here is not vanity; it is a service to the people who knew the person in only one context and want to know it was the same person.
On self-written obituaries
It is a quietly increasing practice — writing one's own obituary, in advance, and leaving it in a labelled envelope with the will. It is a kindness to the people who would otherwise be writing it under pressure, and it gives the writer the chance to choose how they appear in print. The self-written obituary tends to be the most specific and the least sentimental, which is exactly the obituary you want. Many of the best ones I have read were written by their subjects ten years before they were needed.
If you are writing your own, keep it factual, name the people who matter, name a charity, and leave one sentence of character at the end. Tell one family member where the file is. The point is to spare the people you love the task of inventing the form from scratch at the worst possible moment. You can also write a longer piece — a short-form memoir — to sit alongside it for the family to read later.
— An obituary is a public notice with one specific true sentence inside it. The notice is the form. The sentence is the work.