How to write a eulogy

Most advice on writing a eulogy is the same advice. Speak from the heart. Keep it to three to five minutes. Include a few anecdotes. Practice it beforehand. All of it is true. None of it is particularly useful when you are sitting with a blank page three days after losing someone.

This guide focuses on what actually makes a eulogy land when delivered, and on the practical decisions that get you from blank page to finished draft. It is written for the person who has never done this before, may not speak in public often, and is grieving.

What a eulogy is actually for

A eulogy is a short speech about the person who has died, given at the funeral by someone who knew them. It is not an obituary (that is a factual summary of their life) and it is not a sermon (someone else may do that part). It is one person speaking, for a few minutes, about another person they loved.

The purpose is narrower than people think. A eulogy is not trying to cover their entire life. It is trying to help the people in the room remember them properly and leave the service feeling that the person they loved has been seen and named.

That is the only test that matters. If the room nods, smiles, tears up, recognises the person, the eulogy has done its job.

The most useful structure

Forget chronology. The eulogies that land almost never start at birth and work forward to the date of death. That format fights the point of the exercise.

A structure that works well:

One sentence of context. Who you are, how you knew them. One sentence. Not a paragraph.

One specific memory. A single, concrete moment. Not a summary. A scene. Where you were, what they said, what they did. Two minutes of one memory is more powerful than six minutes of generalities.

One quality, with evidence. Pick one thing about them and prove it with a story. Not "she was kind" but "she was the kind of person who". If you need more than one, pick the one that most people in the room will recognise.

One thing they said. A phrase they used often, a saying, a piece of advice, something they always said when you called. Their voice, in their words.

A short close. A line addressed to them if it feels natural, or an acknowledgement to the room. Something simple. Nothing grand.

This is usually around 500 to 700 words, which comes out at three to five minutes spoken aloud.

Specific beats generic, every time

The single biggest thing that separates a memorable eulogy from a forgettable one is specificity.

"He was a devoted father" is generic. Every father is described as devoted at his funeral. The people in the room have heard it so many times it barely registers.

"He used to drive me to swimming at six in the morning every Saturday for eleven years, and he always brought the same flask of tea, and he always let me pick the radio station" is specific. It does the same job as "devoted father" and more, because the room can see it.

If you are stuck, the prompt is: what did they do, rather than what were they like. The doing is where the person lives.

Quote them, in their own words

If the person you are eulogising had a particular phrase, a saying, a catchphrase, a bit of wisdom they repeated, a swear word they were fond of, a way of answering the phone, use it. Actually say the words. In their voice if you can do it without embarrassing yourself.

The room will laugh or cry or both. A phrase in their actual voice brings them into the room more quickly than any description can.

Even if they were not a quotable person, they almost certainly had one or two things they always said. Ask other people who knew them what those things were. You will find more than you expect.

Honesty beats perfection

It is a temptation to smooth the person's life into a highlight reel. Resist it. They were a real person. People knew them. The eulogy that describes someone as unfailingly patient, endlessly kind, and always cheerful will ring false, and the people closest to them will feel the falseness most.

A eulogy can acknowledge difficulty, temper, contradiction, estrangement, humour about their flaws. It does not have to. But it can. The eulogies people remember tend to be the ones that tell the truth with warmth, not the ones that paint a saint.

John Cleese famously started his eulogy for Graham Chapman with "I guess we're all thinking how sad it is that a man of such talent... should now be so suddenly spirited away at the age of only 48, before he'd achieved many of the things of which he was capable... Well, I feel that I should say: nonsense. Good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard!" The room laughed because it was recognisably true of their relationship.

Nobody is suggesting you open with that. The point is that honesty, in the register the person actually lived in, carries further than dignity in a register they never used.

On delivery

Practising helps, but not in the way people think. The aim of practice is not to memorise. It is to find the places where your voice catches. You will have two or three of them. Mark them. On the day, slow down when you reach them, and take a breath.

Some practical things that actually work:

Print the eulogy in a large font with wide line spacing. You cannot read small text while crying.

Carry a glass of water. Pause when you need it.

Nominate someone in the front row who can step up and finish if you cannot. They should have a copy. Tell them in advance.

If you break down, stop. Take the water. Look up. Everyone in the room is on your side. They will wait.

It is acceptable to read the whole thing. Eye contact is a nice-to-have, not the point. The point is that the words are said.

What to leave out

A few things rarely serve a eulogy well:

Detailed medical information about how they died, especially if traumatic. This is almost never what people came to hear. If the cause of death matters to the story, one sentence is enough.

Old family disputes. A funeral is not the place to settle them, and the people involved will remember it for years.

Long readings of someone else's words. A short poem or quote at the end can work beautifully. Several of them back to back becomes an anthology and loses the person.

In-jokes that only three people understand. The other forty people will feel excluded.

Religious content that does not reflect the person's actual beliefs. If they were not religious, making them sound religious in the eulogy is a kind of erasure.

If you are not the right person to write it

Sometimes you are the closest family member and you have been asked, but you know in your bones you cannot do it. You are too close, too raw, too unused to writing, or you are worried you will not get through it on the day.

Ask someone else. A less immediate relative, a close friend of theirs, a celebrant the family is working with. Share your stories with whoever you choose. Having them read it is not a failure. It is a good decision, and the eulogy will still be yours.

Many humanist and religious celebrants will write a eulogy on your behalf based on family input. This is a normal part of what they do.

A simple starting exercise

If the page is blank and you do not know where to start, try this.

Write, in no particular order:

• Three concrete things they did repeatedly

• Two things they always said

• One moment you remember with them in detail

• One thing about them that other people might not have known

That is the raw material. Almost any eulogy can be built from that list. You will probably use less than half of it. The act of writing the list will often show you which piece wants to be at the centre of the speech.

A note on writing while grieving

Writing a eulogy in the days after a death is difficult in a way that is hard to prepare for. Grief makes concentration harder. Sleep is usually poor. Small decisions feel enormous. It is entirely normal to sit with a draft for an hour and produce nothing.

Write in short sessions. Twenty minutes at a time is enough. Step away when you get stuck. The brain keeps working in the background and you will often come back to a better sentence than you left.

If you are finding the task genuinely beyond what you can manage in the time you have, that is not a moral failure. Ask for help, ask someone else to read it on the day, or keep it very short. A two-minute eulogy delivered well is more honourable than a ten-minute eulogy abandoned halfway through.

A closing thought

The pressure people put on themselves to produce a beautiful, perfect, career-defining speech at a funeral is almost always heavier than the room actually expects. The people attending are there because they loved the person. They want the person to be remembered. A short, honest, specific few minutes is enough, and has always been enough.

If you stand up, say their name, tell one true story, and sit down, you will have done it properly.

This article is for general information only. If you would like help preparing a eulogy, humanist celebrants, religious ministers, and most funeral directors can assist. Humanists UK and Marie Curie both publish helpful guidance and example eulogies.