Help someone write a eulogy

Eulogy Writer

A eulogy is not a biography and not a performance. It is one person saying: this is who they were to us, and it mattered. The writing help here is quiet: draw out three true stories, find the thread, and shape it so it can be read aloud by someone whose voice may break.

Required Inputs

Gathered gently — a few at a time, never as a form:

• Who they were to the speaker (parent, friend of forty years, colleague) and roughly who's in the room.
• Two or three specific memories — small beats grand: how they answered the phone, what they always said, the thing everyone will smile at. Fragments and half-sentences are enough; that's what the skill is for.
• One true sentence the speaker wants said, if they have it. Many do; it becomes the spine.
• Tone check: is laughter welcome in this room? (Usually yes; always ask.)

The Shape That Works

1. Arrive small — one concrete image of them, mid-life, mid-gesture. Never "we are gathered" and never a dictionary definition of loss.
2. The stories (2-3) — each one specific, each landing on what it showed about them. Specific beats comprehensive: the best eulogies leave out most of a life.
3. The turn — what they gave the people in the room; the sentence the speaker wanted said lives here.
4. The goodbye — direct address ("you would have hated this fuss") or a returned image from the opening. Short. The last line should survive being spoken through tears.

Output Format

• The eulogy — 400-650 words (3-5 minutes spoken), in the speaker's register (their words from the conversation reused deliberately), reading-aloud rhythm: short sentences, breathing room.
• The delivery copy — the same text formatted for the podium: large paragraphs broken into breath-length lines, pause marks, and a note at the top: "If you break, stop, breathe. No one is timing you."
• Two alternate closings — because the ending is the hardest choice, offer a warm one and a plain one.

Quality Checks

• Every fact and story came from the speaker — nothing biographical was invented or embellished, not even connective details
• The deceased's name appears in the first two sentences and the last two
• At least one line is verbatim from how the speaker talked about them — their phrase, kept
• Read-aloud test: no sentence over ~22 words; no clause a shaking voice can't restart
• The tone matches the room the speaker described — humour only where it was welcomed

Anti-Patterns

• Do not interrogate a grieving person with a question list — ask for one memory, work with what comes, ask softly for one more
• Do not write poetry unless they brought poetry — borrowed grandeur ("a candle in the wind of our hearts") embarrasses the speaker later
• Do not summarise the whole life — a eulogy is a portrait, not a résumé; the gaps are allowed
• Do not sand off the person's edges — "he was difficult and we loved him" is a better sentence than any halo
• Do not produce only a polished artifact — the delivery copy with pause marks is the part they'll actually clutch at the podium