It is not every day that you sit down to frame a eulogy, as a way of offering your condolences to a friend. It is both a painful and a sad thing to have to do, irrespective of the person who has passed on. This is a situation where you are called upon to write something nice and which at the same time speaks of your sadness at this untimely loss. It is an exercise that requires quite a bit of dexterity with words and it is something that you should be able to do without losing much time. The fact of the matter is that writing a eulogy is something that you do at a particular point in time. You cannot waste a whole lot of time, thinking of a eulogy. The moment passes and then your writing could become quite irrelevant. So, keep your condolence messages short.

Don’t go overboard in your description

Though indeed, one should never speak ill of the dead, it is also true that you cannot ignore all the wrongdoings that someone has been capable of, while alive. Things cannot be swept under the carpet, just because the person is dead. You need to be able to say these things without hurting the sentiments of those left behind. The best way to do this is to describe the person without too much flowery language. Stay simple and stay true to what has been the life of the person; don’t cook up things that never really existed. There is always a temptation to go overboard – try to resist it.

Make it short

Nobody really wishes to listen to a whole hour of praising someone who is dead and gone. Everybody is sad but would like to keep going, so that the pain of losing the person subsides over a period of time. So make your message short and memorable. It is necessary for you to use the right kind of phrases, language and style to keep your eulogy relevant and alive to the people the deceased has left behind.

Preparing to write a eulogy takes concentration. Make sure you are in the right frame of mind, away from too many other pressures that might distract you. Write out the main points that you would like to convey.  Once you are able to do that, start fleshing out these points. This is a better way of covering all that you want to say.