Give as many details as possible to identify the person so that readers won’t confuse your loved one’s death with someone who has a similar name. Read our simple outline of this type of obituary. Many obituaries tell the chronological story of the person who died. Read through our three sample outlines for a short obituary. You may want to publish the longer one on the funeral home’s website or share it in the funeral program. They print a shorter version in the newspaper to inform community members about the death and let interested parties learn the service details.

For this reason, some families choose to have two different versions. They may also charge more if you choose to have a photograph printed with the obituary. Most newspapers charge a per-word fee to print an obituary. Consider how you can personalize your loved one’s obituary to tell others that someone special has died.

Obituary Outlines for a Website or Social MediaĮven though most obituaries read like a newspaper account of a person’s death, that doesn’t mean that they need to be completely devoid of emotion.

Since you can approach obituary writing in a variety of ways, we include six sample obituary outlines to consider. We’ll help you learn how to write an obituary by giving you a sample outline to fill in with your loved one’s specific information. After all, how do you sum up a life well lived in a few hundred words? Writing your loved one’s obituary may break your heart and really challenge you.

Obituary sample form