There's a specific kind of stuck that happens when you sit down to write an obituary.
You know who this person was. You can picture their face, hear their voice, feel the exact weight of what's been lost. You have everything you need to write something beautiful — and then you open a document, and the cursor blinks, and nothing comes.
This isn't a writing problem. It's a grief problem. Your brain is doing everything it can to process an impossible thing, and you're asking it to simultaneously compose a formal document. Something has to give, and usually it's the words.
The good news: there's a way through this. And it doesn't require waiting for the grief to lift — which it won't, not in time. It requires making the task smaller.
Why the Blank Page Is So Hard
Most people freeze when writing an obituary for one of two reasons.
The first is emotional. An obituary is, in some ways, the final act of acknowledgment that someone is gone. Starting to write it means accepting that. For many people, that acceptance comes in waves — and sitting down to write the obituary can trigger one of those waves with particular force.
The second is scale. You're trying to summarize an entire life — decades of experience, relationships, meaning — into a few hundred words that will be read by strangers and kept by family for generations. The weight of that task, felt all at once, is paralyzing.
The solution to both is the same: make the task smaller. Stop trying to write the obituary. Start trying to answer one question.
"You don't have to write the whole thing. You just have to answer one question. Then another. The obituary will follow."
Start with Questions, Not Sentences
Instead of opening a blank document and trying to write, open a blank document and answer these questions — informally, as if you're talking to a friend. Don't worry about grammar, order, or how it'll sound. Just answer.
- What's the first thing you'd tell someone who'd never met them?
- What's the one word people always used to describe them?
- Tell me one specific memory — a moment, a scene — that captures who they were.
- What did they always say? A phrase, a piece of advice, a joke they repeated?
- What were they most proud of?
- What did they do every single day that everyone in the family recognized?
- How did people feel after spending time with them?
- What will you personally miss most?
Write the answers the way you'd say them out loud. Conversational, direct, specific. Don't reach for eloquence yet. Just get the raw material down.
Now look at what you have. That is the core of the obituary. Everything else — the dates, the survivors, the service details — is scaffolding around it. The answers you just wrote are the thing that makes it theirs.
The Six Steps: From Nothing to a Complete Draft
Collect the facts in a separate list
Don't try to weave facts into your writing before you have them. Spend ten minutes making a list: full name (including maiden name), dates of birth and death, surviving family members, where she lived, her career, her affiliations, service details. Getting these out of your head and onto the page clears mental space for the harder work.
Answer the questions above — badly
Write the worst, most unpolished version of those answers. Don't edit. Don't backspace. Get it out. A terrible sentence you can revise is infinitely more useful than a blank page you're staring at.
Write the opening sentence last
The first sentence is where most people get stuck. Skip it. Start somewhere in the middle — the story, the memory, the thing that defines them. The opening will be easier to write once you have the body.
Put the factual details in after
Once you have the emotional core, add the facts in. Where and when they were born. Who they're survived by. Where the service will be held. These are easy to write compared to everything else — and they add structure to the piece.
Read it aloud
Reading your draft out loud is the single most effective way to hear what's working and what isn't. If you stumble over a sentence, it needs to be rewritten. If a paragraph makes you cry, that's probably the paragraph that needs to stay.
Have one other person read it
Ask a sibling, a spouse, or a close friend to read the draft before you finalize it. They'll catch the things you've gone word-blind to. They might also add a detail you forgot, or remind you of a phrase you didn't think to include.
EverWord's guided approach was built for this exact moment
Instead of facing a blank document, you answer 18 thoughtful questions about your loved one — their character, their life, the things only family knows. EverWord takes your answers and crafts a beautiful, personal obituary. You review it, adjust anything that doesn't feel right, and have a tribute worthy of them.
Start the Guided Process →$149 · Digital delivery in minutes · Physical keepsake included
What If You're Still Completely Frozen?
If you've tried to start and still can't — if every time you open the document you close it again — that is not a failure. That is grief doing exactly what grief does.
Here are some things that can help:
- Set a timer for 10 minutes. Commit only to writing for 10 minutes. You don't have to finish. You just have to start. When the timer goes off, you can stop. You'll usually find you don't want to.
- Talk before you write. Call a sibling or a parent and ask them to tell you their favorite memory of the person you lost. Listen. Take notes. Then write from those notes.
- Write as if you're writing a letter, not an obituary. "I want you to know what she was like..." is an easier prompt than "Margaret Eleanor Doyle was born on..."
- Use a guided structure. Staring at a blank page is much harder than answering specific questions. That's the entire reason EverWord exists — we ask the questions, you answer them, and we turn your answers into the tribute.
How Long Should It Take?
With the right material and a clear structure, a competent first draft of an obituary can take 45–90 minutes. Polishing takes another 20–30 minutes. If you're deep in grief, double those estimates and give yourself permission to take breaks.
If you need it quickly — there's a funeral tomorrow and you have nothing yet — EverWord can turn your answers into a complete obituary in minutes. You can also work through our complete guide at your own pace, or browse real obituary examples to see what's possible.
A Final Note
The fact that this is hard is evidence of how much they meant to you. The blank page isn't blocking you because you're a bad writer. It's blocking you because you're trying to honor someone who was genuinely irreplaceable — and your mind understands the weight of that.
You'll get there. One sentence at a time, if that's what it takes. And whatever you write, as long as it's true, it will be enough.
For a complete walkthrough of the writing process, see our step-by-step obituary guide or review what to include in an obituary. Writing for a specific family member? See our guides for writing a mother's obituary, a father's obituary, or a husband's obituary. For a fuller memorial tribute, see what to include in a life story for a funeral. Also facing other memorial writing? Read how to write a eulogy for a friend or what to say in a sympathy card. Planning the memorial service? Read how to plan a celebration of life. Start your loved one's obituary with EverWord →