Often filled with facts and figures, most essays share a common purpose: to teach in some way. But the narrative essay is an exception. It wants neither to preach or teach. Instead it leads the reader to discovery through description, which may become metaphoric. Academic essays do not live and work in the vague world of metaphor; their job is not to suggest, but to spell out facts and often to argue a point of view.
Unlike other essays, a narrative essay will always feature the human element, whether it be a person, a place where people dwell or an event they attend. The subject matter is not usually scholarly, though sometimes a writer might mix the two. For example, someone might write an essay about a sister who died of leukemia, with the essay mapping her human struggle while at the same time discussing leukemia, complete with statistics, medical facts and a discussion of current treatments.
The voice in a narrative essay is generally much more conversational than in any other kind of essay. The first-person "I" speaker is fine, and so are contractions. Also, the voice is rarely the sure, objective voice of a scholar. More often, it's a human voice, perhaps at times unsure, coming from a speaker who is letting readers into a private world. Sometimes, it's an observer voice. But in a narrative essay, the observer is not that of a clinician looking for objective data. It's a personal, involved voice, maybe that of someone who might be watching with kindness or disbelief. However exploratory the voice, in the end, the essay makes a point, stated or implied.
Narrative essays by definition tell a story rather than report. As a result, the writer includes lots of sensory impressions -- smells, colors, lighting -- and imagery, passages that describe physical things and actions. The verbs in a narrative will also be more colorful than in other types of essays and the description more fulsome. For example, a scholarly essay might say, "When an individual wonders about his place in the world, he may enter an existential crisis." The narrative essay spoken from the point of view of an observer might ask, "What makes her think she is different from that field mouse, burrowing through the tall grasses, the timothy and rye, gathering shreds of leaves and ragged bits of windblown cellophane?"