Creating a Functional Interest (Part 7) by Caleb Michael Sarvis

My name is Caleb Michael Sarvis. I’m a writer, a thinker, and currently a self-reflective incubator. Welcome to a blog series in which I’ll be analyzing both the practical and interesting ways imaginary characters can play in fiction, including The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien, 2014’s Best Picture Winner Birdman (or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), and other short fiction.


Reason, Dreams, and Conclusion

Hemingway, Carver, and other post-Enlightenment authors championed realism in its most literal sense. If art is the representation of real-life then art must be as close to real-life as possible. Angels don’t exist in real life. Tigers don’t associate with six-year old boys. A deer carcass doesn’t orchestrate an existential crisis. These claims are fallacies. If not for imagination, then we’d have no fictions. In his “First Manifesto on Surrealism,” Andre Breton argues that we mistakenly dismiss the significance of dreams. Like the imaginary character, Breton believes dreams are a clearer representation of what we desire, and as a result, the dreamer is a more content man, Continue reading “Creating a Functional Interest (Part 7) by Caleb Michael Sarvis”

Creating a Functional Interest (Part 5) by Caleb Michael Sarvis

My name is Caleb Michael Sarvis. I’m a writer, a thinker, and currently a self-reflective incubator. Welcome to a blog series in which I’ll be analyzing both the practical and interesting ways imaginary characters can play in fiction, including The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien, 2014’s Best Picture Winner Birdman (or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), and other short fiction.


“Still Life” by Jason Ockert

In his story “Still Life”, Jason Ockert captures this idea of imaginary character through the carcass of a dead deer on the side of railroad tracks. The protagonist, Everett, is a high school student that’s artistically inclined. So much so that when his favorite teacher, Mr. Ralph, gives him a D on his self-portrait, Everett concocts a means of getting back at Mr. Ralph: runaway and fake his death. The class takes a field trip to the local tracks via the Adopt-a-Railroad program, and they set about picking up all the trash before the bus returns to school. Everett discovers the dead buck in a ditch and as he studies it, his subconscious comes to life, Continue reading “Creating a Functional Interest (Part 5) by Caleb Michael Sarvis”

The Trouble With Canon by Caleb Michael Sarvis

My name is Caleb Michael Sarvis. I’m a writer, a thinker, and currently a self-reflective incubator. Welcome to my blog.


Within the last six months or so, I’ve returned to a couple of my story-telling roots: Harry Potter and the Star Wars franchise.

Part of this return had to do with the release of The Rise of Skywalker and wanting to be as canonically knowledgeable as possible before watching the final film. Turns out, this didn’t really matter because The Rise of Skywalker is a bat-shit mess that only the internet could’ve written – which it pretty much did by overreacting to the The Last Jedi, which was a perfectly fine Star Wars film.

Continue reading “The Trouble With Canon by Caleb Michael Sarvis”