A number of novels I’ve read recently have epilogues.  I often find them irritating.  If the scene in the epilogue is important to the story, then it should be included in the main body of the work and not tacked on at the end.  If it isn’t important to the story, then it should be dropped.  Most of them seem to be more for the writer than the reader.  It feels as if the writer doesn’t want to let go of a character.  This is understandable.  When you’ve lived with your characters for the enormous amount of time it takes to write a novel, you can’t let them go without saying goodbye.  Fine.  Write that.  But don’t include it as an epilogue.  For your reader, the story is already done.

Another misuse of epilogues to come–