How to Write an Obituary

An obituary is a factual article that appears in newspaper telling people about a death. Obituaries run for every person who dies, and sometimes the newspapers employ people to write obituaries. However, other times, a member of the family must submit an obituary. Writing an obituary is not itself difficult, although it may be hard to do without following a step by step process.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• List of family members
• Newspaper guidelines

1. Ask your local newspaper if there are guidelines to writing the obituary, such as the format of the first paragraph or the word count.

2. Follow the newspaper guidelines completely.

3. Start the obituary's first paragraph with the name of the deceased, where he or she lived, when he or she died, and how old he or she was.

4. Include a paragraph where you list all family members preceding the deceased in death. You should include spouses, children, grandchildren, siblings, and parents.

5. Include a paragraph where you list the names of survivors. You should include spouses, parents, siblings, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and grandparents.

6. List all relatives mentioned above, even if the deceased did not get along with some of them.

7. Do not list out the names of aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, and other distant relatives, except under certain circumstances, such as if the decreased was particularly close to them.

8. Include information about the deceased's education, profession, hobbies, church membership, accomplishments, and other biographical information if space permits.

9. Direct people to a place where flowers or memorial donations can be sent as the closing sentence.

Tips & Warnings

• When you are grieving for someone you’ve lost it can be difficult to get tasks like this done, so an obituary is best written by someone who was not extremely close to the deceased.
• Do not take it personally if parts of your obituary are cut when it is printed. Space sometimes does not allow for a long article.

[wikedwestwitch]

on 12/3/2007 Correction, please...you state -"...obituaries run for every person who dies..." - this is NOT reality. Today, many newspapers DO NOT automatically publish death information, as they used to do (as a courtesy).

[jcorn]

on 10/30/2007 Thanks for the information.