Best Examples of Writing a Ballad: Step-by-Step Guide

Let’s start where most guides don’t: with lived, on-the-page examples of writing a ballad, step-by-step. Once you see a ballad being built, the structure stops feeling mysterious and starts feeling like a recipe you can follow and tweak.

Think of a ballad as a story song on the page. It usually:

• Tells a clear story (often dramatic or emotional)
• Uses simple, musical language
• Repeats lines or refrains
• Follows a regular rhythm and rhyme pattern

We’re going to walk through several examples of writing a ballad: step-by-step guide style, then break down what each one is doing so you can copy the method, not just the result.

Classic Ballad Patterns with Real Examples

Before we write our own, it helps to see how the classic pattern works. A traditional ballad stanza often looks like this:

There once was a ship that put to sea
The name of the ship was the Billy O’ Tea
The winds blew up, her bow dipped down
Oh blow, my bully boys, blow

That’s from the folk song “The Wellerman”, which exploded on TikTok in 2021 and reminded everyone that ballads are very much alive. Even though it’s an old sea shanty, it’s a textbook example of a modern audience falling in love with a ballad’s storytelling and rhythm.

Why this works as a ballad

• Clear situation: A ship heading out to sea.
• Simple language: No fancy vocabulary, just strong images.
• Refrain: “Oh blow, my bully boys, blow” repeats and anchors the song.
• Rhythm: You can tap your foot to it. That steady beat is what you want.

When you look for examples of writing a ballad: step-by-step guide style, this is what you’re aiming to imitate: short, vivid lines that tell a story, with a repeated line you can keep coming back to.

Step 1: Start with a Story (and 3 Story Examples You Can Steal)

Every good ballad starts with a story idea. Not a vague “feeling,” but an event you could describe to a friend.

Here are three examples of ballad-worthy stories you could write today:

• A factory worker standing up to an unfair boss and losing their job.
• Two siblings separated in a wildfire and finding each other again.
• A long-distance couple who only meet once a year at the same diner.

You don’t need a fantasy epic. In fact, some of the best examples of modern ballads are small, human stories. Think of songs like “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman or “The River” by Bruce Springsteen—both often discussed in literature and music classes as modern ballads because they tell grounded, detailed stories in verse.

Pick one simple story: Who wants what, and what goes wrong? That’s your ballad core.

Step 2: Shape the Ballad Stanza (With a Full Example)

Most English ballads use four-line stanzas. A very common pattern is:

• Line 1: 8 syllables
• Line 2: 6 syllables
• Line 3: 8 syllables
• Line 4: 6 syllables

And a rhyme scheme like ABCB (the second and fourth lines rhyme).

Here’s an example of a ballad stanza about the wildfire siblings idea:

The smoke rolled down the mountain road (8)
It burned the evening sky (6)
My sister’s hand slipped out of mine (8)
I never said goodbye (6, B rhyme)

This is one of our real examples of writing a ballad: step-by-step guide style:

1. We picked a story (siblings in a wildfire).
2. We chose the ballad stanza pattern.
3. We drafted four lines that fit the pattern.

You can count syllables on your fingers at first; most writers do when they’re getting used to it. If you want more background on meter and rhythm in poetry, many creative writing programs (for example, those at Harvard University) teach this exact kind of pattern.

Step 3: Add a Refrain (with Multiple Variations)

A refrain is a repeated line or couplet that returns at the end of each stanza. It’s one of the best examples of how ballads hook readers and listeners.

Using the wildfire story, here are three examples of possible refrains:

• “I never said goodbye.”
• “The fire took more than trees.”
• “The mountain keeps her name.”

Let’s pick one and see how it works in context:

The smoke rolled down the mountain road
It burned the evening sky
My sister’s hand slipped out of mine
I never said goodbye

Now imagine this line coming back at the end of each stanza, maybe with a small twist later on:

I finally said goodbye.

This kind of echo is what makes so many examples of writing a ballad: step-by-step guide worthy: you start with a repeated line, then let it change as the story changes.

Step 4: Build the Story in Scenes (Three More Concrete Examples)

Think of each stanza as a scene in a movie. You move the story forward a little at a time.

For the wildfire ballad, here are three scene examples you might write as separate stanzas:

Example 1 – Normal life before the fire
Show the siblings together, maybe arguing over something small.

We fought about the window seat
The summer we turned ten
We raced the creek and skinned our knees
We always healed again

Example 2 – The moment of disaster
The fire arrives and forces them to run.

The sirens cut the evening air
The ash fell like the snow
We ran until my lungs gave out
I had to let her go

Example 3 – The aftermath
One sibling searching, not knowing what happened.

I walked the ridge for seven days
Called every name I knew
The fire lines and the rescue maps
Could not bring me to you

Then end each stanza with your refrain:

I never said goodbye.

When you look for examples of writing a ballad: step-by-step guide online, this is the pattern you’ll see again and again: small, vivid scenes, each one closing on the same emotional line.

Step 5: Use Simple, Strong Language (Modern Trend: Plainspoken Ballads)

A big trend in 2024–2025 poetry and songwriting is plainspoken storytelling. You see it in popular “story songs” on streaming platforms and in narrative poems shared on social media. The language is direct, but the emotion runs deep.

Some of the best examples of current ballad-style writing:

• Indie folk songs that tell full stories in three minutes.
• Spoken word pieces that use refrains and repeated phrases.
• Narrative poems in online magazines that follow a ballad-like structure.

If you want to study how simple language can carry heavy emotion, check out resources on narrative poetry and ballads from places like the Poetry Foundation or the Academy of American Poets. They often share classic and modern ballads side by side so you can see how the form has evolved.

When you write, aim for:

• Everyday words over fancy ones.
• Concrete images (“ash fell like snow”) over vague feelings (“I felt sad”).

Many real examples of writing a ballad: step-by-step guide style will show edits where writers swap in simpler words to make the rhythm and emotion land harder.

Step 6: Rhyme and Rhythm Without Driving Yourself Crazy

You do not need perfect, showy rhymes. In fact, some of the best examples of modern ballads use near rhyme or slant rhyme:

• sky / time
• again / rain
• road / world

These are close enough that your ear hears a pattern, but you don’t get boxed in.

Try this example of revising for rhyme and rhythm. Start with a clunky line:

I lost my sister in the fire that burned across the land.

Now trim it to fit the ballad shape and add a near rhyme:

I lost my sister to the flames
That crossed the mountain wide

You’ve got:

• Shorter, more musical lines.
• An image you can see.
• A soft rhyme (flames / land → flames / wide with mountain to echo the earlier stanzas).

When you study examples of writing a ballad: step-by-step guide style in workshops or writing classes, you’ll see this kind of trimming and reshaping again and again. It’s normal for ballads to go through several drafts just to get the lines to sing.

Step 7: Another Fully Worked Example – The Diner Lovers Ballad

To give you variety, here’s a second full example of a ballad concept, this time about the long-distance couple who meet once a year at the same diner.

Stanza 1 – Setting the scene

We meet each year on Highway Nine
Where neon cuts the rain
The coffee’s weak, the jukebox old
But still we board that train

Refrain idea:

One night to live a borrowed life.

Stanza 2 – The tension

Your ring light flickers on your hand
You turn it to the wall
You say you almost didn’t come
You nearly missed my call

One night to live a borrowed life.

Stanza 3 – The choice

The waitress fills our cups again
Says, “Haven’t I seen you two?”
We laugh and say, “Just passing through,”
But both of us know it’s true

One night to live a borrowed life.

You can see how this second story follows the same examples of writing a ballad: step-by-step guide pattern:

• A clear situation.
• Short, image-heavy lines.
• A repeating refrain that sums up the emotional core.

If you compare this with the wildfire ballad, you’ll see how the same structure can hold very different stories.

Step 8: Using Real-Life and Historical Events as Ballad Material

Many classic ballads were basically the news reports of their time—stories of shipwrecks, murders, love affairs, and political struggles. You can do the same with today’s events.

Here are a few examples of ballad-worthy sources:

• A local news story about a missing hiker found years later.
• A community protest that changed a city policy.
• A historical figure whose story you think is under-told.

If you like working from real history, look at archives and educational resources from places like the Library of Congress, which has collections of traditional ballads, or university literature departments that share annotated ballad texts. These give you real examples of writing a ballad: step-by-step guide to how people turned real events into verse long before social media existed.

When you write your own, you don’t have to be perfectly accurate, but try to keep the emotional truth of the story.

Step 9: Editing Your Ballad – A Quick Before-and-After Example

Editing is where your ballad goes from “okay” to “I can’t stop thinking about this.” Here’s a short example of an edit.

Draft stanza:

The town was burning everywhere
I didn’t know what to do
I lost my sister in the fire
I couldn’t get to you

Edited stanza:

The sirens cut the evening air
The ash fell like the snow
My sister vanished in the smoke
I couldn’t let you go

What changed:

• “Burning everywhere” became specific images: sirens, ash, smoke.
• “Didn’t know what to do” was cut—too vague.
• The last line shifted from physical distance to emotional attachment.

This kind of edit is all over real examples of writing a ballad: step-by-step guide in writing workshops. You keep the story, but sharpen the language until each line earns its place.

FAQ: Examples of Writing a Ballad, Common Questions

What are some famous examples of ballads I can study?

Some classic examples include “La Belle Dame sans Merci” by John Keats and many of the traditional ballads collected in “The Norton Anthology of English Literature” (often used in college courses). For modern, song-based ballads, look at narrative songs like “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot or “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman—both are often cited as some of the best examples of storytelling in ballad form.

Can you give a short example of a ballad stanza I can copy as a template?

Yes. Here’s a simple, reusable pattern:

The river rose above the bridge
It swallowed stone and steel
I stood and watched our house go down
With everything we’d feel

You can swap in your own images while keeping the rhythm and rhyme structure. This is one of the easiest examples of writing a ballad: step-by-step guide style you can adapt.

Do ballads have to rhyme?

Traditional ballads almost always rhyme, but many contemporary poets experiment with near rhyme or even loose, irregular rhyme. If you’re just starting, using rhyme will help you learn the pattern; once you’ve studied several examples of writing a ballad: step-by-step guide style, you’ll feel more confident bending the rules.

How long should my ballad be?

Anything from three stanzas to several pages can work. Many real examples include 6–12 stanzas, but if you can tell a complete story in fewer, that’s fine. Focus on finishing a short, clear draft first; you can always expand later.

Where can I find more examples of ballads to learn from?

Look at:

• The Poetry Foundation for classic and contemporary ballads.
• The Academy of American Poets (search for narrative poems and ballads).
• College writing center pages, like Harvard’s Writing Center, for discussions of meter and rhyme.

Reading many different examples of writing a ballad: step-by-step guide style will show you how flexible the form really is.

Bringing It All Together

If you’ve read this far, you’ve seen multiple examples of writing a ballad: step-by-step guide style:

• The wildfire siblings story with a repeating regret-filled refrain.
• The annual diner lovers story with one night to “live a borrowed life.”
• Short, standalone stanzas you can use as templates.

Now it’s your turn:

• Pick a story you could tell out loud in two minutes.
• Break it into scenes.
• Draft four-line stanzas with a repeating refrain.
• Edit for simple language, strong images, and steady rhythm.

You don’t have to write like anyone else. Use these real examples as training wheels, not chains. Once the pattern feels natural, you can bend it, break it, and build the kind of ballad only you could write.