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. It comes after the closing line and give the reader 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 with a stomach ache, you leave the restaurant feeling light and satisfied and you wake up feeling well.

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. The icing on the cake. 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, it’ll give your reader a headache. Have you ever gotten an email that goes on so long and has so little direction, you don’t read it? Just like relishing that dessert, you want your readers to savor your last words and remember them fondly. Did you know 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.

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 won awards or come up short. You may have earned a gold medal or you may have come in last. 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. Whatever happened that inspired you to write, when the book is over, you can inform readers about 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 comes after the final chapter and help to tie up loose ends. 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 enriches the last chapter. It doesn’t repeat what the reader already knows.

In the book, “Up and Running” that I wrote for the late Jami Goldman, a woman who lost her legs and became a Paralympic champion, I ended it with the following:

The birds disappeared into the darkness. Lisa kissed me good-bye and I watched her drive away. Then, feeling like a princess, I floated toward the casita where Brittney and Kristin would spend one last night with me as a single woman.

Jami’s story was complete as it was, but she had something more to say – an epilogue, an emotional follow up in which she was able to walk down the aisle beside her father, despite the fact that she had prosthetic legs. I was fortunate to be at her wedding and everyone cried, including me, in awe of her strength to carry on a rewarding life as she showed us all what a human being is capable of overcoming.

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 isn’t covered in the last chapter.

I’ve seen epilogues enhance a book or ruin an otherwise wonderful one, so it’s important to determine whether or not it will be useful for you.

Ask yourself:

• Will an epilogue add value to my story?

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

• Is it consistent with the rest of the book?

• 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?

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 may want answers to their questions so they can put the story to bed in their minds. If your cousin Bernie was diagnosed with a terminal illness in the middle of the book, readers need to know what happened to him. If you don’t find a way to cover that in the last chapter, an epilogue is a good way to do it.