A eulogy is usually written in two or three evenings, by someone who is grieving, for a room of people who knew the person in different ways. It does not have to be the definitive account of a life. It has to give the people in the room a few minutes in which the person feels present again.
Gather material before you write
Start by talking to people: family, old friends, colleagues, neighbours. Ask each of them for one story, one phrase the person always used and one thing that made them laugh. Write everything down, even small details. You will not use most of it, but the best eulogies are built from specific moments, not general praise. Check facts as you go: dates, the names of places, the order of jobs and moves. A wrong detail in a eulogy is noticed by everyone who knew the truth.
Find a shape, not a timeline
The most common mistake is to read out a life from birth to death, like a CV. Instead, choose two or three things that defined the person, such as their stubbornness, their cooking or their devotion to a football club, and tell a story for each. You can mention the main facts of their life along the way. Open with something specific that everyone will recognise, and end with something that points to what they leave behind: their family, a habit others will carry on, a line they used to say.
Keep it short and spoken
Most eulogies should last five to seven minutes, which is roughly 700 to 1,000 words. Write the way you speak, in short sentences, and read it out loud as you edit. Humour is welcome if it fits the person; a room of mourners is often grateful for a reason to laugh. Avoid in-jokes that only two people will understand, and leave out anything that might hurt someone in the room, including old family arguments.
Delivering it on the day
Print your eulogy in a large font with wide spacing, and number the pages. Practise it several times, at least once in front of someone you trust. On the day, speak more slowly than feels natural and pause after each story. If you break down, stop, breathe and drink some water; nobody will mind. Some people ask a friend or relative to stand nearby and finish reading if they cannot. Give a copy to the family afterwards. Many keep it for years.
If you are asked at short notice
If you only have a day, keep it simple: say who you are and how you knew the person, tell one story that shows who they were, and say what you will miss. Three minutes of honest words is better than ten minutes of borrowed ones.
The test of a good eulogy is the same as for an obituary: people should come up to you afterwards and say, “That was him”, or “That was her exactly”.