Julie Plec & Candice King on YA’s “Hyper Emotionality,” The Vampire Diaries, and We Were Liars

They may be called “YA queens,” but Julie Plec and Candice King know the truth: the stories that stick don’t belong to one age group. They belong to anyone who’s ever felt everything all at once. In this episode, Julie (the powerhouse behind The Vampire Diaries universe) and Candice (forever Caroline Forbes, now stepping into adulthood as Bess Sinclair in We Were Liars) reunite to talk about what it really takes to build characters audiences grow up alongside and grieve, binge, and re-binge for years.With warmth, candor, and plenty of laughs, they revisit the early magic of casting Caroline, the craft of making “the mean girl” human, and the industry pressure that still haunts leading women: that relentless likability note, now delivered through streaming data instead of network standards. They also dig into how shifting conversations around agency and consent changed the rules of genre storytelling in real time, and why We Were Liars was a decade-long fight worth winning: a story built to wreck you, heal you, and keep you talking.Listen to learn:- Why Caroline Forbes worked: vulnerability as the ultimate character unlock- How YA became “nine to 72” (and why it’s still misunderstood)- What changed from Vampire Diaries to We Were Liars in writing women- Why eight-episode seasons can’t replace the “holiday episode” era- How “hyper emotionality” became the secret sauce for lasting fandomThe Women in Entertainment Podcast presents thoughtful conversations with leaders across entertainment from film and television, to media and gaming, and everything in between; as we talk about what it takes to make your mark in the industry, lessons these incredible people have learned along the way, and how they have found their way in an ever-changing environment.With in-depth conversations and pre-submitted listener questions, each episode provides candid advice for navigating today’s entertainment industry, giving listeners an inside look at how key players got their start, and guidance for building the necessary toolkit to bring careers to life in film, TV, music, theater, graphics, writing, animation, and beyond.Listen on Spotify: ⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/5AfPfPQ...Listen on Apple Podcasts: ⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...Listen on Audible: ⁠https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/a85...Find us on:Instagram: ⁠ / inherwords_...⁠ Facebook: ⁠ / inherwordspodcast ⁠Twitter: ⁠ / inherwords_wie ⁠Tiktok: ⁠ / inherwords_wie#JuliePlec #CandiceKing #InHerWordsPodcast #WomenInEntertainment #TheVampireDiaries #CarolineForbes #WeWereLiars #BessSinclair #YAStorytelling #Showrunner #TVWriting #FemaleProtagonists #StreamingEra #Fandom #BookToScreen