Q&A with Ashley Woodfolk, author of When You Were Everything
Ashley Woodfolk's newest young adult book and her second novel, When You Were Everything, centers a turbulent friendship between two teen girls. Focusing on the complicated and often painful reality of growing through and out of friends. The following is an exchange between Ashley and Kristina Forest, author of I Wanna Be Where You Are and the forthcoming Now That I’ve Found You. And tune into their live chat on Instagram this Thursday 3/19 at 7pm! Follow them at @ashwrites & @kristinaforest_.
Kristina Forest: There aren’t many YA novels where the main plot is a friendship break up story. Were you aware of this before you started writing? Or were you purposely trying to fill a gap?
Ashley Woodfolk: I was very aware that there aren’t many YA books about friendship breakups. There aren’t many YA books about friendship at all—especially not as the main conflict or point of the plot. So yes, I was definitely looking to fill a gap, but I think every book I write is a book I wish I had when I was younger. And I would have loved to have a book about teen female friendship when I was in high school.
KF: So is that an overall goal of yours--to write books that you wish you had when you were younger? Your novel also has really great representation, so I’m wondering what role representation plays in that goal too.
AW: Yes, that is 100 percent a goal of mine. I think of my younger self every time I sit down to write something and I think all the things I went through in middle school and high school are the main source of inspiration for my novels. YA as a genre overall tends to trend toward romance and while first love stories are a huge part of being a teen, there are so many other things happening. So I think my goal is to write about that stuff--the things that most people forget about (with a little romance on the side). Representation is an important part of my writing because I think sometimes people not only forget about a lot of the intense stuff teens go through, they also forget black and brown kids are going through them too.
KF: Speaking of high school, were any aspects of the characters inspired by people you knew in high school, and did any of your high school friendships inspire the plot?
AW: I think you’re thinking specifically of Cleo and her love of Shakespeare, right? And to be honest I actually always loved the poetry of Shakespeare, but I hated the plays until college. I was one of those nerdy kids in AP classes before I really had any business being in an AP class, so I was reading things that I had no idea how to interpret, things that were a little over my head. I just wasn’t ready. But being exposed to Shakespeare when I was fifteen and sixteen years old, may have primed me to fall in love with it later. I still like the poetry more but I have an appreciation for the plays because of a really intense professor I had in college, whose tests were nearly impossible to pass and who made us memorize soliloquies for our final grades.
As for the plot, I’ve had a major friendship break up at almost every stage of my life. Middle school, high school, college, and even an almost-one as an adult. So yes the plot was inspired by my life, but it was actually my middle school breakup (the very first one) that inspired some of the finer details of this story.
KF: That’s so interesting, but it also makes sense, because so many middle grade books are specifically about friendship breakups. Did you find writing this book to be cathartic at all?
AW: Absolutely. Writing is like free therapy. If you look at my acknowledgements, they start by me talking about how hard this book was to write, and how resistant I was to being emotionally vulnerable enough to really get into Cleo’s head. But I have Nic Stone to thank for calling me out about being a coward, and challenging me to be brave enough to kinda face my own demons. I’ve always been the girl who gets hurt and lashes out. That was tough to own up to.
KF: The Beauty That Remains is written in three POVs, while When You Were Everything is written only from Cleo’s POV and not Layla’s as well. Did you ever consider writing dual perspective from both Cleo and Layla’s POV?
AW: I’m never doing multiple POV again. The Beauty That Remains was a nightmare to edit, and I’m scarred for life. But seriously, I didn’t consider writing from both friends’ POV’s because so often in these kinds of breakups even when it’s possible to see both sides of the story, you still end up feeling like you were wronged and were wrong. So I was more worried about that--making sure neither girl was 100 percent at fault for their friendship falling apart. I thought writing from one perspective would make it easier for the reader to relate to one character, even if they ended up siding with the other. I also was always the “Cleo” in my friendships, always the one who felt like she was being left behind, and always the one who retaliated and regretted it, so her side of the story came more naturally to me than Layla’s would have.
KF: Even though it’s only told from Cleo’s POV, as a reader, I still felt really close to Layla, and I was able to empathize with her, even though I wasn’t in her head. So you say you won’t do another multi POV book. Would you write another dual timeline book?
AW: I think that all of my novels will have some kind of weird, complicated format. It just feels like the way I’m meant to tell stories? I never get an idea for a story that is super linear. There’s always something thrown in that mixes things up. So I probably won’t write another story that’s told in the same way that When You Were Everything is (as far as “Then” and “Now”) but I do have other ideas for playing with time when it comes to the plot of a story.
KF: I get that, and I really like stories that play with structure, so I’m looking forward to whatever your next book is!
I’m so bummed that we didn’t get to chat in person at Books Are Magic for your launch :( but people will be able to tune into our live chat on Instagram this Thursday at 7pm! Follow us at @ashwrites & @kristinaforest_
Okay, last question: What are your quarantine/social distancing book recs?
AW: The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski; Yes No Maybe So by Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed; Let Me Hear A Rhyme by Tiffany Jackson; Check Please by Ngozi Ukazu.
