Your epilogue tells readers what happened after your memoir’s conclusion

You completed a rough draft of your memoir’s chapters.

Next, you crafted a satisfying, memorable Grand Finale for your readers. (If you missed the last three posts on your memoir’s all-important ending, click on links below.)

Now it’s time to work on your epilogue.

The epilogue plays a different role than your story’s final chapters.  

Your final chapters should be your conclusion. An epilogue is not a conclusion. It serves as a follow-up, telling readers what happened after your memoir’s conclusion.

Readers have come to know you and your story’s main characters. They care about you and your causes and, as a result, they want to know more.

Write your epilogue as a message addressed to those readers.

Your epilogue can answer questions: “Where are they now? What are they doing now?” It can also invite them to get involved in a cause (such as a ministry or blog) by supplying information and links to get them started.

“An epilogue provides comments outside the main action

that give insight into what happened.

The main actions in the book

may take place in one period

and the reader will want to know

what happened afterward.

That kind of follow-up

could appear in an epilogue.”

(Writers and Editors)

That’s what my new memoir’s epilogue did. Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go ended when my husband and kids and I left South America and returned to the States, but within the main body of the memoir I had written about what would take place after we left: the kidnapping and murder of our coworker, Chet Bitterman, and the kidnapping of another coworker, Ray Rising. Those were significant events I wanted readers to know about, including long-term ramifications, so I included those specifics in my epilogue.

Epilogues can serve another purpose, too. They can explain to readers what your current view is of what happened in your story.

Since writing memoir requires retrospection, examination, and piecing together past events, writers usually stumble upon key insights they missed earlier in life. Through writing, they gain a perspective that evaded them in the past. They begin to make sense of an experience or relationship.  So, you can use your epilogue to share those insights and current views with your readers.

Sharon Lippincott writes about that function of an epilogue. In her excellent The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing, she writes:

“Many stories, especially those about events when you were young, may be more valuable or meaningful to readers if you add a few thoughts at the end about how you see things now. The simplest way to handle this is to add an epilogue explaining the insight you’ve gained that has changed the way you view the situation.”

Sharon gives a couple of examples of wording to use: “I would be middle-aged before I fully comprehended that. . . .” and “Over twenty years later, he was diagnosed . . . and I finally understood . . . .”

Other useful phrases are:

• Looking back, it now occurs to me that . . . .
• I had no way to know back then that. . . .
• The way I see it now, years later. . . .
• Over the years, I’ve come to accept. . . .
• Twenty years later, I discovered. . . .
• It took me a decade to realize. . . .
• At the time, neither of us knew what was happening or why, but. . . .

Sharon Lippincott also writes about the value of sharing her current-day thoughts from an adult perspective.

She writes this about one of her vignettes, The Rocking Chair: “The main story took place when I was about sixteen. . . . Since the story recounts some typically teenage resentments of my mother, I wanted to temper the harshness of that judgment by pulling the story into the context of adult understanding. I did this in the epilogue rather than spoiling the authenticity of the memory by interjecting current thoughts into the story body.” (from The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing)

You can do what Sharon did: share your current-day thoughts in “the context of adult understanding.” Readers will appreciate that.

However you choose to write your epilogue,

create a rich experience for readers,

one that will make them glad they read your memoir.

Perhaps they’ll recommend it to others.

And maybe they’ll even write a review of your book (!!!)

on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Goodreads.

(See links below about how to submit book reviews.)

Links for how to submit book reviews:

HOW TO SUBMIT BOOK REVIEWS ON AMAZON. Be sure to check their Community Guidelines. Among other restrictions, if you haven’t spent $50 at Amazon in the past twelve months, you cannot leave a review.

HOW TO SUBMIT BOOK REVIEWS ON BARNES AND NOBLE. Click on links toward the bottom of that page.

HOW TO SUBMIT A BOOK REVIEW ON GOODREADS. 


Recent posts about your memoir's ending:

Back to basics: Your memoir's Grand Finale, Part 1
Back to basics: Your memoir's ending, Part 2
Inspiration for your memoir's all-important ending, Part 3

Inspiration for your memoir’s all-important ending, Part 3

Roy Peter Clark offers advice on how to craft your memoir’s ending, but starts with how not to craft it: “The end of your story may say to the reader, ‘I decided to stop writing here.’”

But that’s not how to end a story.

Maybe you’ve read books in which you can almost hear the author moan: “I just want to be done with writing this book.” (I’ve been there. How about you?)

Remember, you’re writing for more than yourself. You’re also writing for your readers. An abrupt end without closure will surprise them. It will leave them with questions. Readers need perspective, resolution, hope.

People read stories so they’ll learn from others how to solve problems, choose faith and courage, be tenacious, survive, thrive, have strong morals, and figure things out, among many others.

After investing so much time and heart and emotion 

into writing your story, make your ending shine.

Bring your story full circle. End on a high note.

Refuse to write simplistic endings and trite conclusions.

Roy Peter Clark continues, “ . . . If you have the readers’ needs in mind, you want your ending to be more than that [‘I decided to stop writing here’].”

“If your story is short, you want your ending to ‘stick the landing,’ the way a great gymnast completes a [vault].

“If your story is long, your ending should serve as a reward to your reader for following you to that destination. . . .

“Don’t make your readers grumble when they finish your story. Make them laugh, cry, cheer, write a note to their mothers. All accomplished with a great ending.” (Roy Peter Clark)

“Punch up your ending with a powerful thought that lingers,” says Karen Zey.

People long to discover universal truths,

transforming truths,

spiritual truths,

underlying truths,

relevant truths.

Your readers yearn to take away such truths

from your life and memoir.

They want to apply them to their own lives.

  

Use your memoir and its ending to make people think.

Too few people think deeply anymore—about anything.

Make people think!

Inspire them to think outside the box.

How do you want people to think

because they read your memoir?

What do you want people to do

because they read your memoir?

How do you want them to live

because they read your memoir?

Readers want a compelling, satisfying ending 

that gives them inspiration for living. 

Give them that kind of ending.

Back to basics: Your memoir’s ending, Part 2

Sunday at church, a lady came up to me and gushed, “I just read the end of your memoir!”

She wore an enormous smile but had no words beyond those eight—she was speechless. But she waved her hands and gestured with her arms and let out a few sighs, and her non-stop smile continued to light up her face.

As you might imagine, her words pleased me.

But that’s not my point. 

My point is this: The ending of Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir resonated with her. It must have made sense to her. It left her feeling the way she did.

Your job as a memoirist is to set aside plenty of time to craft your memoir’s ending. You want it to end on a high note so readers will long remember it.

How do you do that?

Ask yourself, “I had a reason to start writing this memoir. What was it?”

If you pinpoint your reason to begin writing your story, you’ll have a better idea of how you want it to end.

Ask yourself:

• In what ways am I a different person because of what I experienced in my story? (Click on What is a memoir: Back to basics)
• What principles do I want my story to illustrate?
• What attributes of God do I want to shine in my story?
• What Bible verses or passages capture the point of my memoir?
• What lessons do I want readers to apply to their own lives?
• What change do I hope to see in my readers because of my story?

You might get out a sheet of paper and divide it into two columns. In the left one write, “The reason I’m writing my memoir is _________” and fill in the blank. 

In the right column, write, “The message I want readers to take away from my memoir is _________” and fill in the blank—realizing you won’t likely know the final version of your ending until you’ve written all your chapters.

That’s because, within the process of writing, our stories often take us directions we didn’t anticipate.

And that’s because the process of writing can open our eyes to things we overlooked before.

That, in turn, can change the end of our story. (Click on last week’s post, Back to basics: Your memoir’s Grand Finale, Part 1.)

You might not know the heart and soul and best ending until you’ve finished your first draft and have made time to mull it over—and that could take weeks, or months, or even years.

But that’s okay. As you keep writing, these will become more evident.

When you’ve finished and polished 

the main body of your memoir, 

finalize your Grand Finale 

so readers will resonate 

with your memoir’s significance.

The beauty of your memoir will shine brightest

in its carefully crafted ending.

“Make sure no loose ends hang from the story

that leave people wondering.

They will feel the story isn’t over. . . .”

You want readers to feel the story is over, to feel that:

“The story has been told, the tension resolved,

the consequences shown. . . .”

(Craig Brian Larson, “How to Tell A Moving Story”)

from The Art and Craft of Biblical Preaching)

Leave your readers satisfied. 

Leave them celebrating 

all God has done in your life. 

Leave them thankful and changed 

because they read your memoir.

Back to basics: Your memoir’s Grand Finale, Part 1

While you’re writing your memoir, keep in mind where you’re heading: Build toward your ending.

Your ending is the most important part of your book 

for both you and your readers.

For that reason, never, never, never settle for this trite, anemic conclusion: “And they lived happily ever after.”

For the benefit of (a) yourself and (b) your readers, pin down the heart and soul of your story.

But consider this: Most of us don’t know precisely how our memoirs will end because, within the process of writing, our stories often take us directions we didn’t anticipate.

That process of writing can open our eyes to things we overlooked before and that, in turn, can change the end of our story.

You might not know the heart and soul and best ending until you’ve finished your first draft and have made time to mull it over—and that could take weeks, or months, or even years.

But that’s okay. As you keep writing, these will become more evident.

The beauty of memoir is that you write much more than just events and details. You uncover a story larger than the one on the surface.

You excavate a story deeper and higher and wider than the immediate one.

Dig it out in pieces if you must—but dig it out.

Here’s the key: You must make time, must be deliberate in reflecting, pondering, digging. Discover new insights and patterns and connections that significantly impacted your experience and your life.

Use your Grand Finale to highlight your story’s most important points, those messages you want your readers to treasure and incorporate into their own lives.

Keep this in mind:

The beauty of your memoir

will shine brightest in its conclusion.

Come back next week

for additional inspiration

in crafting your memoir’s ending.