Are you interested in writing poetry, but have never found the right vein for your creativity? Do you want to enter the list of characters like Homer and Hesiod? Maybe you want to write an epic poem.
Steps
Step 1. Read some epic poems
After all, you are doing this to become part of the tradition! An epic poet must have read at least Homer. Reading the epic poems will give you a sense and an idea of what the epic is. It will also give you inspiration to write your own epic, to read more epic, and to ignite the imagination with stories of the sea.
Step 2. Start with a hero
Epic poetry always follows the adventures of a hero. Take, for example, Homer's Ulysses, Virgil's Aeneas, Gilgamesh or Beowulf. You are probably quite familiar with heroic traits, such as courage, justice, and virtue. In the classic epic, the heroes also tend to be oriented towards the future and above human affairs. These character aspects can make your protagonist interesting.
Step 3. Track your epic journey
What challenges will your hero face and why? It could be a mission where your protagonist has to find something, save someone, or a long homecoming from a distant war, or the protagonist could even be caught in the middle of the war itself. Think of the twists and turns and complications that can embody this journey. You will discover, in the classics, that hot-tempered and jealous deities play as important a role in the plot as aspects of the protagonist's character.
Step 4. Invoke the Muses
You are now ready to start writing your epic! This part is optional (because it's a feature of Greco-Roman epic poetry), but if you want your epic poem to have that classic form, you should start with an invocation to the muse. "Sing me, O Muse, of …" is an archetypal invocation. The Muses were Goddesses, in classical mythology, who inspired poets. There was a protective muse of every poetic style; the muse who inspired the epic was Calliope. John Milton also made use of this custom when he wrote his Christian epic, "Paradise Lost". It is interesting that Milton refers to the "Celestial Muse", a device through which he substitutes the Judeo-Christian God for the ancient Greek-inspired deities.
Step 5. Write
This is the fun part. You can write your poem in any form, with or without verse. No one could tell you what form your writing should take. If you wish to write in the style of Homer, Virgil, Hesiod and other classical poets, the verse they used was the dactyl hexameter, or verse made up of six dactyls (another article here should be able to help you with the verses). Ancient Greek and Latin poetry does not rhyme, and yours does not need rhymes either.
Step 6. Give your work a title
Epics almost always take their title from the hero's name. The Odyssey is a title that derives from Odysseus, the Aeneid from Aeneas, the epic of Gilgamesh from Gilgamesh. Sometimes, the title derives from an entire crew of people, such as the Argonauts (name used for the sailors of Argos), but mainly the heroic epics take their name from the hero. The English language does not have a suffix that you can add to a name to indicate belonging to a topic of interest, so it may make little sense to title your work with something like 'Jimmiade', but you could take a cue from medieval poetry and title it 'The Ballad of X' or 'The Tale of X'. Your title must evoke the greatness of your poem. All time.
Step 7. Publish your work
This is crucial if you want to become a well-known name. If you manage to have even half of Ovid's success, you will likely inspire writers for several centuries to come. You may have trouble getting it published by traditional publishers, as these usually stand behind the novels, but there are plenty of resources online, including direct publishing with print on demand which can be quite inexpensive and even free.
Advice
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Remember that epics are long.
You can't write ten short lines about someone and talk about epic; epics are so long that you may even want to divide yours into several books. Be willing to spend a lot of time (with satisfaction) on your epic.
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Avoid being realistic.
Unleash your imagination! This is a great story of heroic deeds, fickle gods, fantastic monsters, and hostile territories. Your story isn't real, and you shouldn't even have to worry about convincing people that the story is credible.
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Avoid getting emotional.
Epic poems represent heroes, brave and cunning people who do not give in to emotions. Love and desire are part of what tempers heroes, of course, but a true hero always puts duty before emotions. Indeed, epics usually tell important messages about how ordinary people can behave as heroes, and it is no coincidence that Achilles' wrath has such a negative effect on the Achaeans.
