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. )

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 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.

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?