A closing section after the main story ends that shows the aftermath, provides closure, or offers a final perspective shift.
An epilogue is a separate concluding section that comes after the main narrative has resolved. It typically jumps forward in time, shifts perspective, or steps outside the story's frame to give readers one last look at the characters or world. A good epilogue answers the question that lingers after the climax: 'But what happened after?' It's the story's exhale - a moment to process what just happened before closing the book.
Epilogues shape how readers remember your story. A well-placed epilogue can transform a bittersweet ending into a hopeful one, deepen the emotional impact of a tragedy, or plant a seed for future stories. But an unnecessary epilogue can undercut a perfectly strong ending by over-explaining or tidying up loose ends the reader was happy to leave loose. The choice to include or omit an epilogue is as important as any choice you make about your ending.
The '19 Years Later' epilogue showing the characters as parents at Platform 9 3/4 is one of the most famous (and debated) epilogues in modern fiction.
The epilogue is set far in the future, where academics analyze Offred's story as a historical document - reframing the entire narrative as artifact.
The appendix on Newspeak, written in past tense, subtly implies that the totalitarian regime eventually fell - an epilogue disguised as a reference guide.
Some ambiguity is a gift to the reader. You don't need to explain what happened to every minor character. Let the reader's imagination do some work.
If your final chapter ends on a powerful note, an epilogue that softens or contradicts that emotion can weaken the whole book. Make sure the epilogue adds, not subtracts.
If you need an epilogue to make your ending make sense, the problem is in the ending, not in the absence of an epilogue.
Take a favorite novel or film and write an epilogue for it set five years after the ending. Focus on one character and one specific scene that shows how the events of the story changed them permanently. Then ask yourself: does this epilogue make the original ending stronger or weaker? What does your answer tell you about when epilogues work?