Should my Book have an Epilogue?

      What is an Epilogue, and should my book have one? Generally, an epilogue is a chapter at the very end of your book which basically wraps up everything in your story, or can lead you to something in your next story if you are writing a book series.  (See the video below where this topic is discussed).

     If you are still questioning whether to have an epilogue at the back of your book after watching this video let me give you some food for thought.  Is there a lot going on in your story?  Will there be a lot of loose ends to tie up when you reach the conclusion of your book?  If you are still basically at the beginning of writing your story, or even somewhere in the middle you might not know at this point if you want to have an Epilogue at the end of your book or not.

     Personally, I think Epilogues are great to use in Crime, Mysteries, Science Fiction/Fantasy stories because usually in these types of books there is usually a lot that you have to tie up in the end.  Lastly, the other thing you will need to ask yourself that if you decide to use a chapter instead of an Epilogue to finish up your book, will it make the reader feel like you dumped a whole lot of information on them too quickly. The reason I say this is that I have seen book reviews where readers have said that the author seemed to rush their story in the last chapter to its conclusion. So with this in mind, I think when a reader sees the word: EPILOGUE instead they automatically know that the conclusion of the story is at hand, and they expect to have a lot of information given to them where the story is concerned. I also say this because when I see the word Epilogue in a book I always assume this, although I can't speak for every reader.  These are some things you will have to think about as you get closer to the end of your book on whether you need to use an Epilogue or just an ending chapter.

     In my next blog entry, I am going to talk about writer's and their fears and insecurities in regards to their writing, and how someone other than themselves will feel about what they've written.  This can cause a writer who is thinking about self-publishing for the first time to hesitate on whether they really want to publish their work for all of the world to see or not.

     So stay tuned!