The best examples of developing a plot in narrative poetry examples

Examples of developing a plot in narrative poetry examples (classic and modern)

Before we talk theory, let’s look at some real examples of developing a plot in narrative poetry examples you may already know. Seeing the story beats in action makes everything easier.

Think about these well-known narrative poems:

• “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe – A grieving man is visited by a mysterious raven that can only say “Nevermore.” The plot moves from curiosity to obsession to emotional collapse.
• “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge – A sailor tells the story of how he killed an albatross and brought a curse on his ship. The plot follows guilt, punishment, and a haunted survival.
• “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe – A speaker mourns a dead lover and blames jealous angels. The plot is simple but powerful: love, loss, and clinging to memory.
• “The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes – A robber and an innkeeper’s daughter fall in love; betrayal leads to sacrifice and tragedy.
• “Casey at the Bat” by Ernest Lawrence Thayer – A baseball hero steps up to bat with the game on the line. The plot builds suspense and then undercuts it with a famous failure.
• Modern slam poems, like those performed at events such as the National Poetry Slam or Brave New Voices, often trace a clear emotional journey: a childhood memory, a turning point, and a new understanding.

All of these are strong examples of developing a plot in narrative poetry examples because they do the same basic thing stories in novels and films do: they move from a starting situation, through conflict, to some kind of change.

How narrative poems build plot like stories (with real examples)

Even though narrative poems are shorter and more compressed than novels, they still lean on the same backbone:

• A beginning that sets the scene
• A middle that complicates the situation
• An ending that changes something

Let’s walk through how that works with a few concrete examples.

Example of exposition in narrative poetry: setting the stage

In “The Highwayman,” the opening stanzas paint the night scene: “The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees…” You get:

• Time: night
• Place: a road, an inn
• Characters: the highwayman and Bess, the landlord’s daughter

This is the exposition of the plot. It’s short, musical, and visual, but it’s doing the same job as the first chapter of a novel. Many of the best examples of developing a plot in narrative poetry examples start with a vivid snapshot like this instead of a long explanation.

You can do the same thing in your own poem by answering three quiet questions in your opening lines:

• Where are we?
• Who’s here?
• What’s the emotional temperature?

You don’t need to spell it out like a textbook. You just need to give the reader enough to stand somewhere and look around.

Rising action and tension: small changes, big impact

In “The Raven,” the rising action is almost claustrophobic:

• A knock at the door
• Then a whisper at the window
• Then the raven entering
• Then the conversation turning darker and darker

Nothing explodes. No car chases. Just a man asking questions he secretly doesn’t want answered. The tension comes from repetition with escalation: the same word, “Nevermore,” keeps meaning more as the poem goes on.

This is a great example of developing a plot in narrative poetry examples without big external events. The conflict is internal: grief versus denial. The outer action (a bird on a bust) is a frame for the inner breakdown.

In your own work, you can build rising action by:

• Repeating a phrase that gains new meaning over time
• Tightening the setting (from street → room → chair)
• Letting questions get more personal and uncomfortable

Climax in narrative poetry: the moment that can’t be undone

The climax is the point where something irreversible happens.

In “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” that moment is the killing of the albatross. One impulsive act flips the entire world of the poem. The crew’s luck turns. Nature seems to revolt. The dead bird is hung around the Mariner’s neck as a symbol of guilt.

In “The Highwayman,” the climax is Bess’s sacrifice. Tied up as bait, she manages to fire the gun and warn her lover, killing herself in the process. That single shot changes every character’s fate.

Both are strong examples of developing a plot in narrative poetry examples because the climax is:

• Clear (you can point to the exact moment)
• Emotional (it hits the heart, not just the head)
• Consequential (the story cannot go back to how it was)

When you’re drafting, ask yourself: What is the one moment in this poem that changes everything? If you can’t find it, your plot might still be in the “mood sketch” stage rather than full narrative.

Falling action and resolution: what it all means

After the big turning point, narrative poems need a landing.

In “Casey at the Bat,” the falling action is almost instant: Casey strikes out, the crowd is stunned, and the poem ends with “there is no joy in Mudville.” The resolution isn’t long, but it’s sharp: the town’s faith in its hero is shattered.

In “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” the falling action lasts longer. The ship’s ghostly journey, the Mariner’s survival, and his wandering need to retell the story again and again all show the cost of that earlier choice. The resolution is spiritual: respect all living things.

These are great examples of developing a plot in narrative poetry examples because they don’t just stop after the dramatic moment. They answer, even briefly, “So what?”

In your own poems, you don’t need a tidy moral, but you do need some sense of:

• What changed in the world of the poem
• What the main character understands now that they didn’t before

Modern examples of developing a plot in narrative poetry examples

Narrative poetry is not stuck in the 1800s. A lot of contemporary poets and spoken word artists are telling sharp, story-driven poems that feel like short films.

Here are a few patterns you’ll see in modern work:

Confessional story arcs

Many poets who write about mental health, identity, or trauma use a clear narrative arc:

• Start with an everyday scene (on the bus, in a classroom, at the dinner table)
• Reveal a deeper conflict (panic attacks, racism, family violence)
• Reach a turning point (speaking up, leaving, asking for help)
• End with a new perspective (not always healed, but changed)

These poems are strong examples of developing a plot in narrative poetry examples because they treat emotional growth as a story event. The “action” might be as small as finally saying “no,” but it lands like an explosion.

For context on how storytelling supports mental health and processing experiences, you can look at resources from organizations like the National Institute of Mental Health and Mayo Clinic. They often discuss how narrative and expression help people make sense of difficult events.

Social justice and protest narratives

Spoken word pieces about policing, climate change, or gender often follow a timeline:

• A before state (how things looked or were taught)
• A breaking moment (a news event, a personal incident)
• A response (marching, organizing, speaking out)
• A vision (what could be different)

Even though these poems can sound like speeches, the strongest ones still use plot. They show a character (sometimes the poet, sometimes a community) moving from one understanding of the world to another.

Some of the best examples of developing a plot in narrative poetry examples in the 2024–2025 era are happening on stages and in videos rather than on the printed page. Youth poetry organizations, libraries, and schools (for example, university writing centers like those at Harvard University) often share guides on using narrative structure in performance pieces.

Building your own plot: step-by-step approach for narrative poems

Let’s turn this from theory into a simple process you can actually use.

Step 1: Start with a moment that matters

Instead of starting with an abstract idea like “love” or “regret,” pick a moment:

• The night you missed the winning shot
• The last time you saw your grandfather
• The morning you decided to quit your job

This moment is your future climax. The rest of the poem will either lead up to it or fall out from it. Many of the best examples of developing a plot in narrative poetry examples begin with the writer secretly knowing, “This is the scene everything turns on.”

Step 2: Ask what came before and after

Once you have that core scene, sketch around it:

• What was normal before this moment?
• What changed after this moment?

Those questions give you a beginning and an ending.

For example of this process:

• Core scene: You finally tell your friend a hard truth.
• Before: Years of pretending everything is fine.
• After: An awkward silence, then a different kind of friendship.

You’ve just outlined a plot in three beats.

Step 3: Choose your conflict type

Not every narrative poem needs a sword fight. Conflict can be:

• Internal: fear, shame, doubt, temptation
• Relational: arguments, secrets, betrayals
• External: storms, accidents, laws, illness

“The Raven” is mostly internal. “The Highwayman” mixes relational and external. Many modern poems about health, grief, or recovery use internal conflict as the engine of the plot.

For real-world context on internal conflict around health, bodies, and identity, sites like MedlinePlus and NIH offer educational material that can spark story ideas grounded in real experiences.

Step 4: Plant small steps of change

A plot is not just two points—“I was sad” and “I was happy.” It’s the steps between them.

Think in terms of beats:

• A line of dialogue that stings
• A small lie that grows
• A text that goes unanswered
• A door that stays closed

In the best examples of developing a plot in narrative poetry examples, each stanza nudges the situation forward. If a stanza doesn’t change anything—no new information, no new feeling—it might be pretty, but it’s not plot.

Step 5: Make the ending earn its emotion

A twist ending only works if the poem quietly prepared you for it.

In “Casey at the Bat,” the poem spends so much time hyping Casey up that the final strikeout lands as both funny and painful. The ending is short, but it feels earned because the buildup was long.

In your own poem, ask:

• Did I set up this ending, or did I just drop it in?
• Can a reader look back and see hints?

If the answer is yes, you’re moving closer to those best examples of developing a plot in narrative poetry examples where the last line feels inevitable but still surprising.

Quick mini-examples of developing a plot in narrative poetry examples

To make this even more concrete, here are a few tiny plot sketches you could easily turn into full narrative poems:

• A teenager skips school to visit the ocean for the first time. The plot follows the decision to leave, the journey, the moment at the shore, and the return home with a new sense of scale.
• A nurse on a night shift watches one difficult patient all night. The plot tracks annoyance, small acts of care, an unexpected conversation at 3 a.m., and a changed attitude by sunrise.
• A kid learning to ride a bike keeps crashing. The plot rises through each attempt, a moment of wanting to quit, and the final, wobbly success.
• A family road trip starts cheerful and ends with a quiet understanding after an argument in a motel parking lot.
• A gamer loses an online tournament, then realizes the real connection was with the teammates in the chat.

Each of these is an example of developing a plot in narrative poetry examples using everyday life. No ghosts, no albatrosses, just regular people having story-worthy days.

FAQ: Examples, tips, and common questions

What are some famous examples of developing a plot in narrative poetry examples?

Some of the most famous examples include “The Raven,” “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” “The Highwayman,” and “Casey at the Bat.” All of these poems have clear beginnings, rising action, climaxes, and resolutions. They’re great to study if you want an example of how to keep a poem musical while still telling a tight story.

Can you give an example of a simple narrative poem plot for beginners?

A simple example of a beginner-friendly plot: a student forgets their lines in a school play. The poem starts with backstage nerves, moves through the moment of forgetting, shows the crowd’s reaction, and ends with the student realizing the world didn’t end—and maybe even laughing about it on the bus ride home.

Do all narrative poems need a twist ending?

No. Many of the best examples of developing a plot in narrative poetry examples don’t rely on twists at all. Instead, they aim for clarity and emotional truth. The ending doesn’t have to shock; it just has to feel like the right place to stop.

How long should a narrative poem be to have a real plot?

Narrative poems range from a page to book-length epics. You can build a clear plot in as little as 20–30 lines if you focus on one main event. If you want multiple scenes or a longer time span, you may need more space, but length alone doesn’t guarantee plot. Movement does.

Where can I study more examples of narrative poetry?

You can find strong examples in:

• Anthologies from schools and universities
• Online collections from libraries and educational sites
• Poetry performance videos from national slam competitions

University writing centers, like those at Harvard University, often share guides on reading and writing narrative poems, which can help you see the plot structure more clearly.

If you keep one idea from all of this, let it be this: a narrative poem is just a story told under pressure. The lines are tighter, the language carries more weight, but the bones are familiar. Study the best examples of developing a plot in narrative poetry examples, borrow the moves that excite you, and then let your own stories step into the rhythm.