Have you ever written/considered writing an epilogue for your novel?

For what reason would you write an epilogue? Do you always read an epilogue if you find one at the end of a novel, and do you view them as part of a novel, or more of an aside?

I wrote an epilogue for my story The Missing Kittnen. I also wrote a prologue. Basically my reason for doing so was because the story being told by the epilogue had little to do with the main story of the book, but had to do with the story of the series. So it furthers the main plot, but not the plot of that individual book's story.

I've written epilogues before. I mostly view them as a place to wrap up character ends that weren't able to be resolved in the text itself. More of a place where you tell how the character ends up in case you can't show it very well in the rest of the story. So if I felt like everything was resolved by "showing" in the story, I wouldn't find the need for an epilogue.

I always read a novel's epilogue since I generally always want to know how the characters end up.

I write epilogues on occasion. They're useful for wrap up after the wrap up. In Supervillain of the Day Book 4 the book ends after the bad guys have been defeated and Floyd has finally been convinced to return to London, with the line: "Are you sure they're not following us?" We know they'll get back to London safely and the story will go on, but there were still a few unanswered questions like: does Adams ever acknowledge his friendship with Floyd? The book would still be complete without an answer, and I could always answer them later, but the time was right for it and it made a fun little mini-chapter at the end.

That's what epilogues are, often times, mini-chapters like short vignettes after the proper ending. Or reflections from a more abstract point of view. Or sometimes they literally are a mini-chapter: the wrap up is too short to be called a chapter without being embarrassing so it's an epilogue.

There are a few places in my Shine Cycle where I expect I'll have to write an epilogue, because there's some important event that doesn't really fit into the "main action" of any of the planned books. The coronation and wedding of the main character of Sunshine Civil War after the war, for example.

If I make it to the "end" of a novel without uttering the Eight Deadly Words ("I don't care what happens to these people!") or otherwise (metaphorically) throwing it at the wall or setting it down permanently, of course I read the epilogue: to my mind, the epilogue is part of the story, just not part of the Main Action.

Afterwords, authors' notes, and the like, which some people may consider to be in the same category, I will at least start, but I don't always read all the way through.

(My favorite epilogue, by the way, of all the---fairly few---epilogues I've encountered in my life's experience with literature, is Shakespeare's epilogue to As You Like It. )

Ah okay. That makes a lot of sense and sounds quite different than most epilogues at the same time.



Yep, I agree. There definitely isn't always a need for an epilogue. I usually read epilogues as well.

So the reason to write one then, is basically for unanswered questions, or a link between series right?



I've always thought authors notes and so on at the end are totally different to an epilogue. I definitely don't always read them, whereas I would read the epilogue. Interesting.

I love Shakespeare! I haven't read that before though, I don't think.

I think the last chapter of the book Jane Eyre kind of feels like an epilogue because it's more telling all the stuff that happened to these minor characters afterwards.

I've never written my own epilogue yet though. I think choosing whether or not a book needs an epilogue/prologue depends on how large in range the overall story is, and how many characters in it are important.

For me, an epilogue is kind of telling what happened after the events in the book, kind of like those little paragraphs that show up around the credits of a movie that was based on true facts (so-and-so and so-and-so remained friends for the rest of their lives... and so-and-so fulfilled their dream years later, etc.)

I'd never not read an epilogue, because it's a part of the story, even if it's just like a summary of what happened afterwards.

It's all "stuff written by the author that appears after the end of The Story Proper." There are major differences among the subcategories of that group, but they have at least some things in common.

And some epilogues almost have more in common with afterwords than with other epilogues: a (hypothetical) book written in first person, describing the events of a short period of time in great detail, with an epilogue giving in the third person cursory description of the highlights of the rest of the characters' lives, for example.


The essential question, I think, is how many plot threads are left unresolved at The End.

I always read epilogues, unless they're part of a book that I greatly disliked (which doesn't happen very often at all).

I haven't written an epilogue in anything recently (I might have, back when all my writing was even more horrible than it is now), but if I did, it would probably be because it is a part of the story, but it isn't part of the main plot.

I've always been fond of epilogues that show how the main characters and their families have mended/fared, once the main characters return home or have finally resolved their problem. Unless they don't have families, in which case...

The bottom line is that I don't mind epilogues, and I would definitely write one if it was needed - to set up the stage for the next book in a series (i.e., showing the antagonist plotting something or other; a sort of cliffhanger if you will), to show a protagonist returning to their friends and/or family, finally having resolved their conflict; things like that.