In an online world that is fast becoming characterised by abuse, trolling and cyber-bullying, Carrie Hope Fletcher is a fountain of positivity on the internet. In every video, every tweet and every public appearance, Fletcher is upbeat, enthusiastic and keen to promote good feeling. The most endearing thing about Fletcher’s YouTube channel, ItsWayPastMyBedTime, is that she is never cloying or twee. She’s a person who has seen the ugly side of the internet and offers an antidote to the vitriol.
In the spring she published her first book, All I Know Now, a self-help book-cum-memoir targeted at teenagers navigating their way through the world. Fletcher gives pointers and advice on relationships, sex, dealing with your parents and how to safely traverse the online minefield that is Twitter. It’s quirky and light, much like Fletcher herself who I meet in the green room at Yalc, the Young Adult Literature Convention that is now into its second year.
Fletcher is articulate and well spoken, a skill she has honed from regularly speaking on camera and on stage (since 2013, Fletcher has appeared as Éponine in Les Misérables in London’s West End). I ask her how her day has been so far, has she enjoyed Yalc?
“This has been a completely new experience for me,” she says. “Because, apart from Summer in the City [the official UK YouTube convention], I’ve never done a convention like this. It’s so cool because it’s specifically around books, which is something I’m massively passionate about. I’ve yet to have a proper explore but so far it’s been great, I’ve loved it.”
All I Know Now is a book about Fletcher’s life experiences thus far but it was completed a while ago and published in April. Since then, Fletcher has signed on the dotted line to continue her role in Les Mis, gone on a book tour and announced her first novel, On the Other Side, which is due for release next summer. What has she learned from All I Know Now getting published?
“Well, I found that the publicity side of it is almost more work than writing the book.” Really?
Yeah. Writing the book is a lengthy process but you do it bit by bit, you do it in little chunks, whereas the publicity stuff like my book tour was a solid three days. I had to be switched on the whole time and that was more tiring than writing the book.“
There must be an awful lot of energy required. I couldn’t do it.
“The whole book was written on train journeys when I was going to and from London to my job at Les Mis so, afterwards, it was part of my winding down time after work; I was doing it to chill out.”
Compared to her fellow authors at Yalc, Fletcher is unique in that she has two other fairly prolific jobs on stage and in front of the camera. Very few authors start work after 10pm. “Well, like I said,” she says. “I write mainly on trains because when I’m at home I’ll be making YouTube videos or editing or just sitting down having a cup of tea as much as I possibly can.”
“But if I sit down for too long I get restless,” she adds with a grin.
What’s her schedule like?
I usually make videos at home and then I’ll get on the train at 4pm to head into London and I will write and I’ll get to the theatre and I’ll usually edit a video and then I’ll do my job at 6:20 to 10:30 then I will get back on the train and carry on writing.”
That sounds like a lot of work.
“I’ve figured out that it’s about 300-500 words every train journey.”
But how’s it going with her first novel? Fletcher is perfectly happy to answer, “I’m about 15000 words in but it’s got to be 90000 so I’ve got a long way to go but each thousand words feels like a little milestone. But when I started I was worried I wouldn’t make 90000 words and that my story was very simple until I began writing it and I realised just how much there was to write about so I’m 15000 words in but barely into the story so I think I might be going over 9000 words by the time I’m done!”
I’m surprised. Given that the announcement was only last month, did she feel a little daunted knowing that she was in the very early stages of her book yet thousands of her fans were already anticipating it. “Yes, it was,” she admits. “Of course, the whole story’s planned, I just have to write it but when they told me they were announcing it, I was like, ‘I’m sorry, what? You do realise I’ve not finished it yet!’ So that was very daunting, yeah, but the fact everyone knows about it actually motivates me to get it done. I also get impatient with myself because I know what’s coming next and I want to complete the bit I’m currently writing to get the exciting bit that’s coming next. So I do motivate myself because I want to get to certain bits in the story that I know are coming.”
When All I Know Now was released there was a slight controversy over a line in the book about sex:
“I hope I’m not being too presumptuous but I’m also going to assume that your parents have already had that talk with you and you’re well aware that sex is when a man and a woman love each other very much and have a ‘special hug’”
A few people interpreted this as Fletcher being against same-sex parents and at the time she was quick to address it and apologise (the line being amended in all subsequent editions of the book). I ask her if it’s hard having a lot of what you say and write scrutinised.
“It is difficult,” she says. “I’m aware that what I say is going to reach a lot of people so I’m always very careful.
But I’m human and I screw up - I’m not very good at saying things on the spot - so I’ll say something and go, ‘aw, man, I should have worded that better than I actually did’. Like a lot of people, I do that, but I’m more than willing to be told I’m wrong and that I need to apologise for something.”
Personally, I think Fletcher wasn’t in the wrong here and it was clear she was joking. Apologising for something like that must be frustrating.
“Well, I mean, I don’t want to offend anyone and it doesn’t matter to me that by changing that line in the book it means more people will relate to it and more people will understand it. Yeah, I’m not going to be precious about something if changing it means it will relate to more people.”
All I Know Now is, compared to a lot of similar books out there, very personal and quite intimate in places. Fletcher is a very genuine and open person but I ask if there were ever bits of it she wanted to take out because they were too private.
“No, there was nothing I wrote into it that I felt, “hmm, maybe I shouldn’t include that”,” she says definitely. “Because I think I’m quite well practised with videos and stuff. I know where my boundaries are, I know how much I want to share and I know how much I want to divulge to my audience who are, essentially, strangers.”
When I first met Fletcher in the flesh it was startling. When you watch her and so many other YouTubers’ videos, you often forget the screen dividing you exists.
This isn’t new to Fletcher. “Yeah, you know who I am and you know things about me from watching my videos but it’s a very different thing when you actually meet someone face-to-face and have a proper conversation where you’re not just talking to them and they can hear you. It’s a very different thing,” she says.
But, yeah, there was nothing I put in the book that I took out but there were things I put in the book that I was just a little bit nervous about, stuff I was nervous about people reading. Especially my mum!”
The editing process must have been relatively short, then?
“Yeah, well, I sent it to Hannah [Boursnell], my editor, and she sent me back a huge chunk of notes and the notes were mostly things like ‘can you elaborate?’ or ‘is there a story that can go with this?’ or ‘talk about this point in depth’ but there was nothing to be taken out.”
Last year, Zoe Sugg (alias Zoella) published her first book, Girl Online and there was a fair bit of controversy around it, with a lot of people starting to view books by YouTubers negatively. Did Fletcher ever face any negative reaction?
“Less so than I expected,” she says. “I did expect a negative reaction and I thought that people would be sceptical over whether I had actually written my book and I was prepared for it. But I received minimal negativity in the end.”
I think if someone who wasn’t a fan of Carrie Hope Fletcher went into a bookshop and picked up a copy of All I Know Now and read the first chapter, they would be able to hear her voice quite clearly.
“It’s very me,” she explains. “I wrote it like I talk!”
During the day Fletcher works at Les Mis and then at night she comes home and works on her next book. Does she ever find it a challenge to juggle her jobs as an actor and an author?
“Yes, yes, I do,” she says frankly.
I can never say no - I hate saying no to anything - so whenever my agent rings up and says, ‘I’ve got a new job for you’ or my publicist says, ‘you’ve got to be here on this day’, I’m always like, ‘yay, ok, great!’
“But then I look at my next month and see that I don’t have one day off, so I literally have no time to sit down and do anything and that’s when I start freaking out and panicking and stressing and I actually make myself a little bit ill!” She laughs.
“But I’m learning better to say no although this weekend has been one of my busiest weekends ever and it’s my two days off from Les Mis and I’ve managed to fill it with things to do.”
In the green room we are surrounded by lots of different authors. Are any of her writing heroes here today?
“Meeting Malorie Blackman was epic and really cool and she’s so lovely,” Fletcher says with a smile. “There’s also Samantha Shannon, too; we’ve been talking online for a while. I was sent a proof copy of The Bone Season just before it came out and I read it and completely fell in love with it - I thought it was brilliant. So I started talking about it in my videos and then she messaged me saying, ‘oh my god, this is so cool’ and she came to see me in Les Mis and we still didn’t get to meet, so today is the first time me and Samantha have met. So it’s very nice to see people who you’ve spoken to online but not properly met yet - today’s been a day for that.”
When we part ways I ask when Fletcher’s next video is released and she tells me it’s that evening. Then, as I leave, I instinctively say, “see you later”. Technically, it’s true.
Carrie Hope Fletcher appeared at Book Trust’s Young Adult Literature Convention (Yalc) at London Film & Comic Con.