Epilogue: The Morning After: Excerpt From My Book: A Friendly Guide to Writing and Ghostwriting

At last, the wheel comes full circle. 
                                                - - - Cassandra Clare

An epilogue is a literary tool that gives people additional information when your story is over. If you decide to include an epilogue, it comes after the closing line and suggests the morning after the main event, an opportunity for review and closure (if there is any) that will inspire discussion and debate. It’s like having a delicious dessert after a wonderful meal. You enjoyed your dinner, you're full, but you're longing for a little bit more, a taste that will linger on your tongue. If you savor the dessert, taking small forkfuls at a time instead of quickly devouring the entire piece of chocolate cake and waking up the next morning with a stomach ache, you leave the restaurant feeling light and satisfied and you wake up feeling good.

When you get to the end of your book, the epilogue, a few choice thoughts and ideas, will hopefully leave a lingering taste on a reader’s tongue. Your book has a flavor all its own and you need to carry that into the ending and beyond. If the epilogue is long, confusing and filled with inconsequential filler, if it introduces new topics that are not in the book, it’ll give your reader a headache. Just like relishing that dessert, you want your readers to savor your last words and remember them.

I see a similarity between an epilogue and a eulogy. Here lies so and so, who left a positive mark on the people he touched. Or maybe he didn’t. Here lies so and so whose hopes and dreams were fulfilled. Or maybe they weren’t. The epilogue can describe the ups and downs in a lifetime that continue after the last chapter, but if you’re trying to manufacture words to fill up a page, please don’t bother. And don’t treat it as an afterthought. Have you ever read an epilogue that took your breath away? Did it make so much sense, it was a relief to read it? Or did it make you gag?

If you don't want your readers to walk away from your book depressed and disappointed, give them some hope, something that will override despair or at the least, offer some acceptance. The truth is that more than fifty percent of people who read books don’t read the epilogue, especially if it rambles along like a run on sentence. I call that “the kitchen sink” route, ending the book with so much irrelevant data, it’s a recipe for the reader to skip it altogether. You’ll want to avoid this.

If you’ve written a memoir, you may have found happiness or had a hard time with relationships in your life. Or both. You may have earned a gold medal or you may have come in fourth. Maybe you didn't come in at all. You may have shamed yourself by doing something secretive and unkind or you may have celebrated yourself by doing something admirable. If you’ve written a self-help book, you may have found ideas and exercises that continue to work for you and you want to offer encouragement to your readers to try them out. Whatever inspired you to write it, when the book is over, readers will want to know where you are now and where you're going. That is the job of the epilogue.

Here is an excerpt from the epilogue that I wrote for my book, Memoirs of a Ghost. 

For me, it has been a fulfilling and astonishing exercise to recall and put down on the page the wondrous, curious, funny, and often tragic stories that exist within my larger story, the path that my life has taken. I have shed the sheet of invisibility and moved out into the open, and now there is no turning back.

The function of the epilogue is to tie up loose ends as the reader contemplates the larger implications of what came before. But it isn’t the final chapter. It comes after the final chapter. It enhances it. It needs to have continuity with the rest of the book and at the same time, it needs to be able to stand alone. It doesn’t repeat what the reader already knows or something that you never wrote in the book.

If you're wondering if your book needs an extra punch, if an epilogue doesn't flow naturally from the last chapter of the book, if you have to figure out how to make it relevant, it might be better to skip it. If it comes across as anti-climactic, that will signal a reader that you wrote a weak ending. This is what they walk away with. To avoid this, an effective epilogue should do the following:

1.              Wrap up the story.

2.              Predict what is still to come in a natural way.

3.              Point out the transformation that has occurred. 

4.              Demonstrate the consequences or results of what happened.

5.              Add relevant information that a reader might want to know.

In order to determine whether or not an epilogue will be useful for you, ask yourself:

• Will an epilogue add value to my story?

• Is it consistent with the rest of the book?

• Do I have a good reason for not incorporating the information into the final chapter?

• Can it stand alone?

• Will it make readers feel comfortable or leave them in despair?

• Will it sour the ending or sweeten it?

• Will it be instrumental in inspiring a reader to recommend the book to a friend?

If your cousin Bernie was diagnosed with a terminal illness in the middle of the book, readers need to know what happened to him. Use the epilogue for that. Anything you include in your book, every word, phrase and chapter, needs a purpose for being there. This is also true for your epilogue. In the cinematic world, when a documentary is over, they often show still photos of the real people with a few sentences that tell you what happened to them and where they are now. In the same way, readers need answers to their questions so they can put the story to bed in their minds. This is what the epilogue is for.