4. Tell the life story
Move chronologically. Choose detail over adjectives.
Checklist
- Birth date, birthplace, parents
- Education and military service, with years
- Career, employers, and what the work meant
- Marriage, partnership, family life
- Two or three concrete habits or passions
- Community, faith, volunteer work
- Honours that mattered to them
Birth, then education, military service, work, marriage and family, then the interests that filled the remaining hours.
Specific detail beats praise. 'She was a wonderful cook' says nothing. 'She made her mother's plum cake every Sunday and never wrote the recipe down' shows a person.
One vivid habit is worth a paragraph of tribute — the route he walked, the team she shouted at, the tool he refused to replace.
Mention the career, then say what it meant: who she trained, what he built, which customers still ask after them.
It is honest to name difficulty. Illness, addiction and hardship can be stated with dignity; many readers find such notices more comforting than flawless ones.
Tip Ask three relatives: 'What is the first story you tell about them?' The overlap is your middle section.
Avoid Don't stack adjectives — 'loving, caring, devoted, kind'. Four abstractions carry less than one true anecdote.