The Ultimate Obituary Writer’s Guide to Telling Your Life Story

You know your life better than anyone. Why leave it to someone else to tell your story?

Most obituaries are written during one of the most difficult moments a family will ever face. Names get misspelled. Important details are forgotten. Meaningful stories are reduced to dates, jobs and a list of survivors.

An Obituary Writer’s Guide to Telling Your Life Story shows you how to do something better.

Drawing on the techniques used to write thousands of obituaries, this guide teaches you how to capture a life with honesty, personality and purpose—whether you are writing your own obituary in advance, helping a loved one tell their story, or preserving memories for future generations.

You’ll learn what information belongs in a meaningful life story, what can safely be left out, how to uncover the small “telling details” that make a person unforgettable, and how to ask questions that lead to real stories instead of simple facts.

The guide also explores interviewing yourself and others, creating oral histories, using humor appropriately, adding historical context, preserving stories through letters, strengthening your writing and even thinking carefully about the language we use when talking about death.

Writing your own story can also become an unexpected act of reflection. It can help you remember moments you had forgotten, recognize patterns in your life and identify the people and experiences that mattered most.

You don’t have to be famous. You don’t have to have lived an extraordinary life.

You simply have to recognize that your life is worth documenting.

Because someday, your family may know the dates of your life.

This guide can help them understand the story in between.

Digital e-book • Includes PDF + EPUB editions • $4.99