Eulogy outline
This is a working document rather than a reading. Fill it in section by section, in any order, and you will end up with a eulogy without ever having faced a blank page.
Last updated 7 June 2026
How to use this
Copy the outline below into a document or write it out by hand with plenty of space under each heading. Then fill the sections in whatever order feels possible. Most people find the memories easiest and the opening hardest, so start in the middle — the opening is much easier to write once you know what it is introducing.
The word counts matter more than they look. Almost every first draft spends too long on the introduction and runs out of room for the stories, which are the only part anybody remembers.
The outline
1. Opening — 60 words, about 25 seconds
Answer, in this order:
- Who are you, in one clause?
- What is one specific, slightly surprising thing about them — an object, a habit, a rule, a phrase?
- What does that one thing suggest about who they were?
Do not write “we are gathered here today.” See how to start a eulogy for sixteen worked openings.
2. First memory — 150 words, about 70 seconds
- Where and when? Begin at the action, not the background.
- What actually happened? Include dialogue if you have it.
- One detail nobody could guess — a brand, a number, a smell, a time of day.
- What did it show about them? One sentence, no more.
3. Second memory — 150 words, about 70 seconds
- A different situation that shows the same quality, so the two build on each other instead of competing.
- Was anyone else involved who is in the room? Naming them is generous and it makes the story land twice.
- If several people have told you a version of this, say so.
4. The honest part — 60 words, about 25 seconds
- What were they impossible about? A stubbornness, a grudge, a thing they could not be told.
- Said warmly, and preferably with a laugh in it.
Do not skip this section. It is what stops the rest sounding like it is about a stranger, and rooms relax audibly when it arrives.
5. What they leave — 100 words, about 45 seconds
- What do you now do because of them?
- What are other people still doing because they did it first?
- What is physically still here — a garden, a recipe, a business, a habit that has spread?
6. Goodbye — 60 words, about 25 seconds
- Return to the object or phrase from your opening.
- Decide whether you are speaking to the room or to them. Both work.
- Final sentence under ten words, so it is sayable on an unsteady voice.
Filling it in when you are stuck
If a section will not come, leave it and move on. An outline’s real advantage is that a gap in section 3 does not stop you writing section 5.
Three things that reliably unblock a section:
- Ask someone a narrow question. Not “what should I say about Dad” but “what did Dad do that annoyed you?” Narrow questions get usable answers; broad ones get “he was a lovely man.”
- Describe an object instead of a person. Their car, their coat, the state of their kitchen drawer. Objects are easier to remember than feelings and they carry the person with them.
- Write it as a text message to a friend. Type “you know what Mum was like, she used to…” and keep going. The register you want is much closer to that than to writing.
Adjusting the outline for a different length
- Two minutes (260 words): keep sections 1, 2 and 6. Delete the second memory entirely rather than shortening both.
- Three minutes (390 words): sections 1, 2, 5, 6, with the memory expanded slightly.
- Five minutes (650 words): the full outline, with a third memory from a different decade of their life.
- Seven minutes (900 words): add other people’s memories, credited by name, rather than adding description to yours.
More on the arithmetic in how long should a eulogy be.
The one-line version for your pocket
Once the eulogy is written, reduce it to six lines on a card. This is not what you read from — you read the full text — but if you lose your place, or your pages go out of order, this gets you back.
1. [Object or phrase from the opening]
2. [Three words naming the first story]
3. [Three words naming the second story]
4. [The imperfection, in one word]
5. [What continues]
6. [Your final sentence, written out in full]
Write line 6 out completely. It is the one sentence you may need to say without being able to read.
Related guides
Eulogy templates gives you four fill-in templates, each shown blank and then completed. Eulogy format covers the physical pages — type size, spacing, and marking up your breaths. Eulogy structure compares six different shapes and says where each one fails. Our step-by-step guide to writing a eulogy walks through the whole thing in six steps, from a blank page to something you can say out loud.