I’ve invented a new writing rule. It’s called – Save the Kitten!
Some time ago I started watching a Korean television series that shall remain nameless. It got off to a good start – a woman with terminal cancer discovers her best friend and husband are having an affair and are just waiting for her to die. When she dies from a struggle, she suddenly wakes up years earlier with the chance to make a different set of choices. She now knows the man she marries can’t be trusted and her best friend has been controlling and undermining from their school days. Navigating through her second chance, there’s hope that she has a better outcome this time round.
Of course, there’s another love interest – her boss. A man the camera lingers on for far too long at every opportunity.
However, when I returned to watching the series recently, I found a flashback section that showed that the MC and her future boss had some tenuous past connection that she wasn’t aware of. And this is where the kitten of this post’s title comes in…
One of them discovers an abandoned kitten all by itself, no mother, and no sign of an owner. Do they take it home? Or even take it to the shelter?
Nope.
What happens is no doubt meant to be cute, but it infuriated me so much I had to switch the episode off. Just as well I wasn’t hooked up to a blood pressure monitor.
I went back with trepidation the next day.
The problem started with one character deciding to feed the kitten and the other then witnesses this. So then the second person feeds it and it escalates to the guy building a shelter, the kitten getting a litter tray, etc. It’s all meant to be cute and heart warming. Bear in mind this is happening on a campus. The snow comes and this is meant to be magical.
Not if you’re a kitten on your own with two idiot humans checking in on you.
It’s a kitten. Anything could happen to it out there on its own. I know it was just a story, but it infuriated me that this was supposed to show a secret connection between the prospective future love interests. Who dreamt this up? Who thought this was a good idea?
A decent main character would take the kitten home or to a shelter. They’d try and find out if it belonged to anyone and they might also wonder where the mother is. They would Save the Kitten!
When I returned to watching the episode, the kitten ended up on the middle of a road, about to be run over. Told you it shouldn’t have been left on its own! The male character threw himself on the road. Later we notice an adult cat of the same colour in his apartment. Presumably he finally took it home.
Finally!
This choice of leaving the kitten outside for supposedly cutesy interactions with the main characters scunnered me (Scottish expression) beyond belief. They almost lost me as a viewer. Instead of making the main characters sympathetic and relatable, it left them looking thoughtless and stupid. And it didn’t reflect well on the writers and programme makers either.
Who leaves a kitten out at night? Who leaves it with a knocked together wooden shelter when any old drunk or dog could come along and harm it.
As a developmental editor, if you sent me a manuscript with something like this, you would get some diplomatic suggestions about not leaving your characters looking like a couple of jerks. Many people are animal lovers. Even those who are not particularly keen on animals won’t appreciate a kitten left to fend for itself in between cutesy aren’t-these-characters-so-sweet scenes.
I’d also remind you that Amazon and Goodreads reviews are a thing, and it could come back to haunt you as the animal and cat lovers go to town on your novel!
Call it the ‘Save the kitten rule’ and file it away for future reference.
I originally posted this at my IndieCat Editorial Substack. If you want to receive occasional posts in your inbox, you can go there and subscribe since it’s free.
Looking for feedback on your novel?
My 2025 editing calendar is open to new clients. I’m currently busy with a developmental edit, and I have a couple of clients due back soon. But if you want to slip in and grab a place, now is the time to do it. Manuscript critiques, beta reads, full developmental edits, opening chapters developmental edits, or outline critiques. Feel free to email me about your project. I provide free sample edits so you can check if we fit. Email me at karen@indiecateditorial.com.
Sign up for emails on writing and editing!
Once a week (at most), I send out an email from my Substack. Topics include new blog posts on writing and editing, plus writing competition news. You can sign up below.