Question

I need help writing a ballad to the story THe Faerie Queene.

How do I start writing a ballad?
please help

Answer 1

Call for jagatuba . . . @jagatuba: here's one for you. (He's a master of all forms.)

Answer 2

Ballads are lyrical in nature, in other words they can be sung, but they differ from your typical song in that they are more narrative in nature. That is to say that while most songs that you hear say on the radio are about something and have a story behind them, they are not actually telling that story. However, some do and those are ballads.

Your ballad will be a story. So sometimes it helps if you write out a short story first. It doesn't have to be elaborate or well written. You just want to flesh out the story for your ballad because you will come up with verses based on this story. Since you are writing a ballad based on The Faerie Queene, this is already done for you, but you have some decisions to make.

First, The Faerie Queene is a pretty long poem and you probably don't want your ballad to be this long so you need to shorten the story in someway. You could choose a particular part of the poem that you like and use this as inspiration for your ballad or you could summarize the whole poem and create your ballad from this summary. It's really up to you.

Second, The Faerie Queene is an allegory, so you need to decide whether your ballard is going to be based on this allegory or if it's going to be based on the real life stuf that the allegory represents. Again this it totally up to you. Personally, I would base mine on the real life stuff because a) it would give me a chance to really exercise my poet, and b) I would end up with something that is very different from The Faerie Queene. The only caveat to the way that I would do it is that it would require a fairly deep study of the poem so that you understand the allegory that is going on.

Once you have made these decisions you can really start working on your ballad. Don't be afraid to allow yourself to be inspired. What I mean is, don't get locked in to rejecting phrases and lines because they don't seem to fit in with the theme of The Faerie Queene. Whatever pops into your head write it down. If you can use it great, if not there is not harm done and you can dispose of it. Don't be afraid to stray a bit from the original poem. You are not trying to create a carbon copy or trying to mimic Spenser. Spenser is Spenser and you are you. You want this to come across in your writing. You are creating an original work.

Now rhyming and poetry style for a ballad can be played rather loosely. In other words, there is not one set template that you should follow when writing your ballad. You can write it whatever way you want. If you want to do it in iambic pentameter, go for it. if you want to use free verse, that is fine too, but be consistent.

Typical ballads have four line verses and you can uses whatever rhyming pattern you feel comfortable with; abcb is a common pattern used in most contemporary ballads, but you could just as well use aabb or abab. So don't feel like you are stuck with a particular rhyming pattern, but as I said, be consistent. In fact, often times it is more important for you to get the meter right than the rhyming.

Remember, a song has to flow smoothly and if it does often the verses can get away with not rhyming at all. I'm sure if you listen to a lot of music that you can think of at least one (if not several) song that has no rhyme to it, but somehow it still works. this is because the artist got the meter just right. Meter is what creates your rhythm. Without rhythm you don't have much of a song. Again, consistency is important here, even more important than your consistency in rhyming.

Every line or every line that goes together should have the same number of accented and unaccented syllables. This means that if you are using an abab rhyming scheme the a lines will all have the same number of accented and unaccented syllables and the b lines will also, but a lines can differ from b lines syllabically. The important part is that all the lines flow smoothly.

So write your first verse and use THIS as your template for the rest of the verses. You can write your chorus second or you can wait and write it after you have written alkl your verses. Whatever is comfortable and feels natural to you.

Now here's where I throw you a curve ball. While you should be consistent in your rhyming and meter, don't be a slave to it. If you need to increase the length of a line here or there or need to have a verse that doesn't quite rhyme the way the rest of them do, then so be it write it that way. It may work or it may not, but you will catch that in edit.

Which brings me to edit. After you have a rough draft of your ballad. Drop it. Leave it alone. DO NOT START EDITING IMMEDIATELY. Go play a game, read a book, watch TV, anything, but leave your ballad alone. Let your mind drift away from it and let those thoughts and ideas and verses and choruses just percolate in your brain. Go back to your ballad with a fresh rejuvenated mind and you will do much better during the editing process.

When editing, look to fix those little flaws in meter and rhyme. Reading or singing it out loud helps a lot. Reading it out loud will help you catch those awkward parts. Some things sound really good in our brain, but then if we go to say of sing them, they just don't work. Also look for parts that don't fit in with the story. Usually you have a lot to tell in a very limited space so you want every verse, every line to be working to tell the story. If you have a line that is not functioning in this manner, see what you can do to change it so that it is actually telling us something important about the story. After you think you have done all the editing, drop it again. Let it sit for a while and then go back and FOR SURE read it or sing it out loud this time. If it needs more work, give it more work and repeat this process until you are satisfied. At that point you should get a good grade on it. Also if you like you could post it here, of have someone else you know look it over to give you feedback on it. I personally would love to see what you come up with.

That's it. Sorry for such a long answer, but I did not know how much you already knew about writing poetry, so I threw a bit more in to be sure all the bases were covered. Hope it helps. If you have any other question or would like any of us to give you feedback on your completed ballad please feel free to ask or to post it here.