Due this week

General Writing. Send in your best work – poems, short stories, essays. (Feel free to do it throughout the year, but this gives you a deadline.)
Deadline: Oct. 10.

To submit to Newspaper Series

  • Log in. (Click "Not a YWP member?" to create an account.)

  • Click "create content" and create an ENTRY
  • Fill out "title," "author name, school & grade" and "prompt" boxes.
  • Paste story into "body."
  • Click "Submit." You are done.
    NOTES: Your account email must be accurate; a "blog" entry must be resubmitted as an ENTRY to be considered.

Conflicts: Person vs.self

Kitty-Cat Ingemi's picture
Submitted by Kitty-Cat Ingemi on February 8, 2008 - 15:34.

Our reading group decided that one of the big conflicts in the book was Pudge vs. Miles (person vs. self). Through-out the book Pudge/Miles is trying to discover himself and who he really is, looking for The Great Perhaps.
In the BEFORE section of the book, he is Miles. He is friendless and unhappy until Culver Creek where he becomes Pudge. Then he works harder and harder to discover who this new found Pudge is.
During the AFTER section when Alaska dies, he realizes the who and what Pudge is. He discovers the Great Perhaps and moves onward into his new life.
So trough the whole book he isn't just looking for The Great Perhaps, he is looking for his self identity. And Alaska's death helps him to discover both of those goals.

‹ Biggest Surprise--spoiler alert Characters ›

Person vs. Person

Submitted by Danielle Novotny on February 8, 2008 - 15:47.

In the AFTER part of the book Lara, Takumi, Pudge and the Colonel try to figure out what happened to Alaska. They are determined to find out why and how she died. It is a mystery that is really bothering them and they want answers. That is a Person vs. Person conflict.
I know she was in a car accident, but like them I want to know why! I think it could have been suicide and she had planned to do it at the specific time and place that she did. I think the “straight and fast” quote from the book that she had highlighted had something to do with her decision. Also the question that she wrote on her religion test gave clues to what she wanted to do. I think she felt that she needed to solve the “labyrinthine”. What do you think?

Conflict: person vs. society

Submitted by jdotcurt on February 11, 2008 - 13:54.

One conflict that I see in this story is the Colonel versus the weekday warriors. The Colonel is always complaining about the Weekday Warriors and how they are just a bunch of rich kids who don’t really care about anything and just want to pass their classes at Culver Creek and have perfect hair. They always go home every weekend to their mansions and make fun of the kids that stay at the school all the time. The Colonel and the Warriors are always waging war and pulling pranks on each other. The Warriors almost killed Pudge in the lake dunk so the Colonel put blue dye in all the Warriors hair products while they were at home one weekend. I think that this conflict will continue even after they all graduate. I believe this will be the case because they disagree with each other. This is because of their personality and background. These factors most likely will not change so the way the Colonel and the Warriors interact most likely won’t change. They Colonel will tell his story to many people and his kids, that is if he can ever stand to have any, and the war will continue in memory.

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