What are epilogues? What can we learn from prologue examples by Tolkien, G. R. R. Martin, Paula Hawkins and others? Learn more about these useful story elements.

Many authors include \an afterword that supplies further resolution or intrigue. What is an epilogue exactly? Read on for definitions, examples and tips for using them in your own books:

What is an epilogue?

An epilogue, like a prologue, is a section of a book that extends the main narrative. Except the epilogue comes after the main story.

J.K. Rowling controversially used this device to end her Harry Potter series. Rowling showed her central characters when they were much older after the series’ main conflict resolves, a device some readers found too pat and tidy as resolutions go.

There are various reasons why you might include an epilogue. An epilogue in a novel may:

·        Hint at a coming sequel: For example, an epilogue might introduce a new, suspenseful development

·        Limit the possibility of a sequel: Rowling’s epilogue had something of this effect as it showed characters after much time had passed.

·        Provide resolution on another level: If a main character’s arc has resolved, the epilogue may suggest, for example, how things resolve generally for an ensemble cast. Think of the sometimes saccharine ‘Character X is now…’ type of summary that tells the viewer what happened to a specific character after the events of a comedy film or series.

Epilogues: 6 functions in stories

Here are several ways you could use a prologue or epilogue (with examples along the way):

1.   Write epilogues that hint at sequels

2.   Add afterwords showing affect and change

1. Write epilogues that hint at sequels

One way you could use an epilogue is to hint at further developments in a forthcoming sequel.

If, at the end of your book, for example, your no-nonsense detective catches a serial killer, your epilogue could show a new copycat killer, perhaps, engaged in suspicious activity. For example:

‘A man in a scruffy, faded bomber jacket sits at a small desk, snipping. The scissors cut hurriedly around a mugshot Detective McHarry would recognize instantly. The man slides a musty scrapbook in front of him, cuttings loosely cradled in his calloused hands. He would escape detection, he’d studied every case.’

‘Who is this now?’ your readers would likely ask themselves. When writing sequel-teasing epilogues:

·        Relate new developments to earlier action. If your epilogue feels completely unrelated to preceding action or narrative, it might be too confusing. Ensure continuity

·        Create suspense. Give enough information to intrigue. Play with leaving information open-ended. In the example above, the man with the scrapbook could be anyone.

·        Keep epilogues concise. When you’ve already resolved the main action of your story, anything that follows it may feel particularly tiring to read after the climax. Try to keep it a paragraph to a page if possible.

2. Add afterwords showing affect and change

An epilogue or afterword is an opportunity to bring home a sense of the journey your characters have been on (and the journey you’ve taken your reader on).

Epilogue example: Wartime reflection in Brideshead Revisited

For example, in Evelyn Waugh’s classic wartime novel Brideshead Revisited (Chapman and Hall, 1945), the main character Ryder revisits a college friend’s family manor after it has become a military station for the war.

The earlier descriptions of Brideshead are full of life. Yet in the epilogue, the manor is a shell of its former glory. The sense of the manor’s former grandeur, now that it is falling apart under siege, gives the epilogue a nostalgic tone:

Wonderful old place in its way,’ said the Quartering Commandant; ‘pity to knock it about too much’.

Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited (1945).

Further on, Ryder says:

It did not take us long to make our tour of the echoing rooms.

The sense of ruin and abandonment in the altered setting brings home the devastation war entails. It creates an affecting contrast with the earlier descriptions of the laughter, romance and other intrigue characters share at Brideshead.

The epilogue, where Ryder experiences a profound change of place, has an emotional effect. It conveys a haunting sense of how war reduces the familiar into ruins and remnants.

When writing epilogues such as these where characters experience the past from a new vantage point:

·        Evoke emotion: How does your character feel under changed circumstances: Nostalgic? Sad? Stronger? Weaker?

·        Imagine ways to incorporate your story’s main themes: ‘Class’ and ‘status’ are key themes in Brideshead Revisited. The epilogue shows how war levels these to some extent. The manor is no longer quite so grand and has been damaged. Old orders are displaced amid violent change