# Dialogue Doctor - Chapter 20 (`output/chapters/chapter_20.md`)

Cold read, skeptical stance per `checks/audits/dialogue_doctor.md`. Manifest requires scenes 02 (lines 24-59), 03 (62-93), 04 (96-145). Scenes 01 and 05 fall below the dialogue threshold (0 and 1 quoted utterances; manifest: not-required); both were spot-checked anyway for diagnosis and banned moves - none found; scene 05's single quoted utterance is a text message rendered in prose.

Calibration applied: reading guide §2 plain-speech floor and zero-tolerance dialogue-diagnosis rule; §5 care-move no-captioning; §6 tic catalog; §8 followability test; `output/tics.md` retired families ("That's the whole ___" confession template broken at Ch11 with Sam's instance to remain singular; evaluative ", which" captions at zero new instances since Ch13-14; Nia zinger density repaired at Ch15; Ruth one-sharp-line-per-appearance cap); Ch20 prompt anti-tics (no therapy-speak, no advice, no fake-sharp volley, no dialogue diagnosis). The Ch20 claude_tic_audit (tic 10) deferred the June refusal speech to this audit ("preserve only if it remains speakable") - ruled on in Scene 04.

Rule 4/5 contraction sweep, all scenes: zero stiff uncontracted forms in casual dialogue; every speaker holds their card's default-contract policy (nearest candidate: Ruth's "It's short and it doesn't require anything back" - contracted, compliant).

A DIALOGUE-DIAGNOSIS verdict line is added to each scene block beyond the required nine because the reading guide's §2/§6 rule is zero-tolerance and the Ch20 prompt names it a special check.

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## SCENE 02 (lines 24-59, June's apartment - Ruth/Sam box-and-dish visit)

1. VOICE CONVERGENCE: CLEAN - read with attributions covered; Ruth speaks in exact conditionals ("This is a two-minute visit unless you'd like it to be longer"), Sam in physical offers and object questions ("What's the freight?", "And a hand truck if you need it"), June in compressed self-aimed jokes ("I'd offer coffee but I'd be lying about the milk"); strongest counter-candidate: "We have a car." / "And a hand truck if you need it." (Ruth, Sam, lines 51-53) - identical clipped shape back-to-back, but it is a deliberate two-handed care beat answering June's no-opinions rule, and the rest of the scene keeps their channels separate (Ruth verbal-precise, Sam spatial).
2. MONOTONE Q/A: CLEAN - mapped turn weights; errand logistics, one long Ruth statement, June's unprompted disclosure; no matched-weight volley; strongest counter-candidate: "What's the freight?" / "Catalogs. Eight." (Sam, June, 31-33) - one true Q/A pair, immediately broken by June's four-sentence instruction turn.
3. MISSING INTERIORITY: CLEAN - June's mind stays on: "June heard herself and kept going anyway, plainly, because there was no version of the sentence that got easier" (33), the dish-flaw digression (37), her reading of Ruth reading the table (41); strongest counter-candidate: Ruth's confession draws no immediate June response line - survives because "June looked at the receipt so she wouldn't look at Ruth" (45) is the reaction, rendered as action.
4. QUESTIONS-AS-STATEMENTS: CLEAN - the scene's questions are genuine asks ("What's the freight?", "could you leave them with Sonia?"); strongest counter-candidate: "unless you'd like it to be longer" (Ruth, 27) - an offer folded into a statement, but it is a real option June can take, not manufactured portent.
5. FAKE-MCCARTHY MINIMALISM: CLEAN - attribution and physical business are continuous; strongest counter-candidate: "All right," Ruth said. (35) - stripped plainness, earned by June's hard ask the line before; the silence it sits in costs nothing untracked.
6. JARGON-TRADING: CLEAN - no world-terms beyond established names (Sonia, Odile); strongest counter-candidate: "The box is the errand. The dish is separate." (June, 37) - categorical shorthand, unpacked in the same turn.
7. ATTRIBUTION OPACITY: CLEAN - three speakers, every turn tagged or action-anchored (Sam at the door, Ruth at the kitchen edge); strongest counter-candidate: the paired car/hand-truck offers - both explicitly tagged.

FAKE-SHARP: FAIL - "I want to say one thing. It's short and it doesn't require anything back. This fall I noticed things. I kept them to myself and I called that manners." [...] "Some of it was manners. The rest was easier for me. That's the whole confession." (Ruth, June's kitchen, line 43). Three consecutive polished antithesis constructions in one short speech. Ruth's card allows "one sharp editorial line per appearance maximum"; this stacks at least two ("I kept them to myself and I called that manners"; "The rest was easier for me"), and the closer reuses the "That's the whole ___" template `tics.md` retired at Ch11 ("Plain Translation changed Ben to 'That's the email'; Sam's 'That's the whole story' remains singular"). Cut-list: "exchanges that exist mainly to deliver a compact aphorism"; Rule 8: when in doubt, choose friction. The content - naming the cost of her own silence, offering nothing that resembles advice - is exactly per spec; the form overshoots into workshopped.

INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: FAIL - Rule 9 tested in both directions; the failure is the explaining direction, not stripping. Three caption instances: (a) "Sam saw the box by the table before they saw anything else in the apartment, which June respected." (25); (b) "Sam did that in other people's houses and somehow it never once felt like a comment." (39) - a direct §5 violation ("never caption them"); the moved chair is legible alone; (c) "It came out before she'd decided to say it, which was how she knew she'd needed to say it to someone who wasn't a page." (49) - explains the line twice after it lands. `tics.md` holds evaluative ", which" captions at zero new instances since Ch13-14; this scene adds two.

DIALOGUE-DIAGNOSIS (§2 zero tolerance): CLEAN - checked every spoken line and all narration about speech; strongest counter-candidate: "June watched her read it and watched her decline to read it out loud" (41) - survives because Ruth has said nothing; June is reading an action (not itemizing the table aloud), not characterizing any utterance's wording, rhythm, or delivery.

REVISION ORDERS:
1. (FAKE-SHARP) Rewrite Ruth's confession, line 43. Keep the content - she noticed things this fall, kept quiet, and the quiet partly served her own comfort - and keep it advice-free, but spend her one-sharp-line budget once. Kill "That's the whole confession." outright (retired template, `tics.md` Ch11). Direction: one plain sentence plus at most one exact formulation - keep "I kept them to myself and I called that manners." and let the remainder go functional or slightly awkward; Ruth under pressure is "quieter, sharper," not more aphoristic, and the bag-strap fidget already carries the discomfort.
2. (RULE 9 / §5 CAPTIONS) Remove or ground three captions: (a) cut ", which June respected" (25) or convert to action; (b) cut "Sam did that in other people's houses and somehow it never once felt like a comment." (39) entirely - §5 bans captioning care moves; (c) end line 49 at "It came out before she'd decided to say it." and let Ruth's "We have a car" show what the saying bought.

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## SCENE 03 (lines 62-93, phone - Asha at a freight door)

1. VOICE CONVERGENCE: CLEAN - lexical channels stay distinct with attributions covered: Asha owns rates/dates/load-in ("first month plus one month deposit, $980 all in with the wall, by December 10"), June owns the notebook and the ask; strongest counter-candidate: the closing stretch where both speakers land deadpan toppers in the same rhythm ("Cheap enough to forgive." / "That's the listing of my dreams") - real convergence, but it is a polish failure and is ruled once, under FAKE-SHARP below, not double-counted here.
2. MONOTONE Q/A: CLEAN - turn lengths swing from one line ("Say the studio clause again.") to the ninety-word Dana/Kessler paragraph; strongest counter-candidate: "Why aren't you taking it?" / "That's tomorrow's phone call." (73-75) - a question deflected, with the deflection visible as deflection per §2.
3. MISSING INTERIORITY: CLEAN - June's mind marks the beats that matter: "because this part she knew without notes" (67); "June looked at the left page of the notebook, at GOOD in her own handwriting" (79); strongest counter-candidate: Asha's long logistics turn (85) runs without June interiority - survives because June's next line ("$2,643 and whatever paid crating I can get in December") shows exactly what she did with it, and the notebook fill-in afterward is the reaction.
4. QUESTIONS-AS-STATEMENTS: CLEAN - Asha's questions are genuine and self-policed ("Why aren't you taking it? That's not me being polite."); strongest counter-candidate: "Who writes that?" (73) - rhetorical, but answered by the asker in the next breath ("Nia Torres, apparently"); conversational, not portentous.
5. FAKE-MCCARTHY MINIMALISM: CLEAN - freight-noise action beats anchor the call (gate, pallet jack, off-phone shout); strongest counter-candidate: "Yes," Asha said, no gap at all. (77) - clipped, but the bareness is earned by June's setup ("it's yours to say no to") and the timing is the information.
6. JARGON-TRADING: CLEAN - every term is priced or dated in the same breath: "You invoice the 25th, net-45, you'll see money in March" translates net-45 by consequence; "W-9 by the 15th and a body on January 4, eight a.m." ties paper to date; strongest counter-candidate: "net-45" - survives on the immediate March gloss.
7. ATTRIBUTION OPACITY: CLEAN - two-speaker call, tags plus environment anchors; strongest counter-candidate: the long Dana/Kessler turn - kept assigned by "Someone shouted Asha's name off-phone" and load-in framing.

FAKE-SHARP: FAIL, two exchanges.
(a) "One thing, though. Send my name because I can do the job. Don't send it to make your no useful." (Asha, 77) → "This morning it was both. By tonight it'll be the first one." (June, 79) → "That's an honest answer, so fine. Second thing?" (Asha, 81). Warning-aphorism, balanced-antithesis reply, approval tag: a three-line quote volley at the precise moment Asha's card says she should be "clipped and schedule-aware" - she is physically holding a freight door. The required beat (warn June against using the referral as avoidance) survives in plainer words; the volley shape does not. Cut-list: "exchanges that exist mainly to deliver a compact aphorism"; Rule 7.
(b) The exit run: "Take the stupid crating. Especially the stupid crating--it's indoors." / "I have to go be a door again. Send Nia my number. Room's not pretty. Cheap enough to forgive." / "That's the listing of my dreams" (89-91), plus the doubled coat joke upstream ("Wear the coat inside until February. In February, also wear the coat.", 85). Four landed lines in a row to close the scene; every closing turn tops the previous one - the "same dry correction rhythm" cut-list bullet. "Cheap enough to forgive" is Asha's card sample line and may keep its seat; the failure is density, and `tics.md` already logged this exact repair once (Ch15: "Nia zinger density repaired").

INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN - both directions tested: mind present at the decision beats, and the post-call paragraph reacts through object work (dates in ink) rather than re-explaining the call; strongest counter-candidate: "It was a joke where the answer went, which was at least her own handwriting." (93) - a ", which" caption shape, but it assesses her own notebook joke against an object, not the dialogue; cleared, though the rewriter should not add siblings.

DIALOGUE-DIAGNOSIS (§2 zero tolerance): FAIL - "That's an honest answer, so fine." (Asha, 81) rates June's utterance as an utterance. §2: "Characters never comment on, characterize, or rate one another's language... Perceptiveness is shown by what a character *does* with what they heard, never by captioning the conversation"; §6 makes any instance a defect in any speaker's mouth. Even Odile's carve-out targets "the person or the work, never the sentence" - Asha targets the sentence. Her acceptance is already shown by moving to "Second thing?"; the rating is redundant and banned. (Also checked: "no gap at all" (77) - factual timing stagecraft, equivalent to "immediately," not evaluative captioning; cleared.)

REVISION ORDERS:
3. (DIALOGUE-DIAGNOSIS) Replace "That's an honest answer, so fine." (81) with non-rating acceptance - Asha simply moving on does the work: "Okay. Second thing?" Acceptance shown by what she does with the answer, per §2.
4. (FAKE-SHARP) Flatten both volleys while keeping the required beats. (a) Recast Asha's warning (77) into blunter work-floor syntax - the thought stays ("my name goes because I can do the job, not to make your refusal easier"), the balanced epigram shape goes; allow it to be slightly ungainly. Let June's reply (79) lose the this-morning/by-tonight antithesis - she can admit both motives plainly ("This morning it was both. I'm working on it."). (b) Thin the exit run (85-91): at most one landed line in the final four turns - "Cheap enough to forgive." holds card license; cut or plane "In February, also wear the coat.", "Especially the stupid crating--it's indoors." (keep the instruction to take the crating), and "I have to go be a door again." (the door joke already ran at 65; one per call); drop June's topper "That's the listing of my dreams" for a functional close - Asha hanging up mid-word can stay.

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## SCENE 04 (lines 96-145, Friday morning - the Nia refusal call)

1. VOICE CONVERGENCE: CLEAN - with tags covered, assignment never slips: Nia's lexicon is columns/payroll/deadlines ("every line I have a column for," "I have payroll at eleven"), June's is press/wall/record; strongest counter-candidate: the closing correction-for-correction run ("the wall was real..." / "I know it was real..." / "It's 10:52...") where both adopt the same precision rhythm - the lexical channels hold, so the rhythm problem is ruled under FAKE-SHARP as accumulation, not as convergence.
2. MONOTONE Q/A: CLEAN - turn weights vary from "But." to June's long refusal; strongest counter-candidate: the "Walk me through it" → explanation → "So tell me the counter" → counter sequence is interview-shaped, but the interviewer stance is Nia's card behavior (deadline-driven, a program to staff) and the answer lengths and registers vary.
3. MISSING INTERIORITY: CLEAN - the receipt turn (129), "She'd written a longer sentence in the notebook Thursday night and it had died of length" (117), and the landing ("If February went badly, it would go badly in her own handwriting," 145); strongest counter-candidate: the Asha-referral turn (133) runs on pure content - survives because June is executing a decision the reader watched her make in scene 03.
4. QUESTIONS-AS-STATEMENTS: CLEAN - strongest counter-candidate: "You know what I'm going to ask next." (Nia, 131) - a statement standing in for a question, but it explicitly points back to her own Ch15 line ("If you say no, send me someone good"), and June's answer carries new information (she already asked Asha, with permission); peer shorthand, not manufactured portent.
5. FAKE-MCCARTHY MINIMALISM: CLEAN - "Torres." and "But." are single-word turns that are phone-natural and card-true (brisk); strongest counter-candidate: "Then she hung up first." (143) - clipped exit, earned by the payroll deadline established two lines up; nothing untracked rides the cut.
6. JARGON-TRADING: CLEAN - the special-check terms stay followable as speech: June's counter re-glosses its own numbers by consequence ("invoiced the 25th, paid in March," "February is a blank line in my notebook"); "the press" arrives with apposition ("Trueing it, keeping the room usable, making the program run"); strongest counter-candidate: "trueing it" - a press-shop term a cold reader may not know, survives on the apposition and the Ch15 Vandercook grounding; nothing reads as brochure because every term is attached to a cost June is accepting.
7. ATTRIBUTION OPACITY: CLEAN - two speakers, dense tagging, office-noise anchors (printer, keys clicking); strongest counter-candidate: the four-line closing run is tag-light but strictly alternating.

FAKE-SHARP: FAIL - the chapter's peak scene is its most composed; three evidence clusters.
(a) The refusal thesis: "Your job would give me keys and a paycheck and a wall, and I'd hang the shows well, and I'd paint on the good nights, and the good nights would get rarer, and there'd never be one day I could point to where it went wrong, because nothing would have gone wrong. That's what scares me about it. Nothing would go wrong." (June, 117). The claude_tic_audit deferred exactly this construction ("preserve only if it remains speakable") - ruling: it does not remain speakable. One periodic sentence with anadiplosis ("good nights... good nights"), a nested causal flourish, and an epistrophe stamped twice as a closer. June's card under pressure: "shorter syntax... compresses when exposed"; her own established Ch20 move is self-interruption ("The class is--" She stopped., 45) - absent at her point of maximum exposure. Ch12 calibration: June's monologue license was single-use; Ch13+ returns to compression unless giving craft instruction. The narration pre-frames the speech as curated ("it had died of length. This one she could say"), which licenses length, not polish. Cut-list: "lines that sound quotable but not speakable." This is also the Ch20 special check failing: the Nia refusal is a workshopped thesis, not plain and speakable.
(b) "I know. I'd use it twice in March and stand in a well-lit room resenting a clause that was a genuine kindness." (June, 121) - a hypothetical-future aphorism immediately after the thesis; second consecutive polished June turn.
(c) Accumulation on both sides of the close: "That's a worse offer on every line I have a column for." (Nia, 127), "Buy a ticket like a civilian." (Nia, 135), "the wall was real. I wasn't dressing a job in a studio." (Nia, 139), answered by June's curated exit bit "I'll come to the opening and stand too close to the work. It's my one move." (137). Nia's density was flattened once already (`tics.md` Ch15: "12 polished constructions... repaired"); this call re-accumulates four quotables in five turns. Note also the "every line" echo scaffold (narration 15 "won on every line"; June 113 "You win it on every line"; Nia 127) - composed symmetry across speakers. Rule 7: a conversation where every line lands perfectly is a written conversation. The plain spine is strong and must be protected, not sanded: "I'm calling to say no." (109), "You win the math." (113), "But." (115), "It is." (129).

INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN - both directions: mind present (receipt, notebook, the 2 a.m./daylight test carried in from lines 101-103), and interiority reacts rather than re-explaining; strongest counter-candidate: "This one she could say." (117) - explains the speech before it lands; tolerable orientation on its own, but it must be re-fitted after order 5 breaks up the speech it introduces.

DIALOGUE-DIAGNOSIS (§2 zero tolerance): FAIL - two instances, both narration about speech; §6: "any instance is a defect, in any speaker's mouth or in narration about speech."
(a) ""Noted," Nia said, brisk now, the deadline part of her taking the wheel." (131) - characterizes Nia's delivery and mode; same family as Ch15's repaired "Nia's voice stayed level" (`tics.md` Ch15: dialogue diagnosis "repaired to zero" - this reintroduces the family).
(b) "June read it off the right page, flat, no varnish." (125) - captions June's own delivery with an evaluative painter metaphor for manner rather than content. The flatness must live in the read itself.

REVISION ORDERS:
5. (FAKE-SHARP / special check) Break June's refusal speech (117) into speakable pieces. Preserve all content and the fear - six years of excellence at keeping rooms usable for other people's work; the good nights getting rarer; no single day she could ever point to - but deliver it in June's under-pressure register: short units, at least one self-interruption or restart, ideally one Nia interjection splitting it (Nia's "The after-hours access is in writing," 119, can move up as the interruption). Retire the epistrophe: "Nothing would go wrong." may appear once, as a plain sentence, not stamped three ways as a closer. Re-fit the pre-frame ("died of length... This one she could say") to whatever replaces the speech. Then resolve line 121: either flatten to the plain admission ("I know. I'd use it twice and then stop, and I'd resent it, and it's a genuinely kind clause.") or cut it and let "I know." carry the turn.
6. (FAKE-SHARP accumulation) Keep at most one polished Nia construction in the call - recommended keep: "Buy a ticket like a civilian." (most speakable, card-warm). Flatten "That's a worse offer on every line I have a column for." to its first sentence - "That's a worse offer." lands harder unadorned; flatten "I wasn't dressing a job in a studio." to plain assurance in her register ("I didn't put the studio clause in to sweeten it. I meant it."). June's "It's my one move." exit bit may stay only if the surrounding density drops per this order; if the close still reads as topper-trading, cut her line to "I'll come." Break one leg of the "every line" echo (113 or 127) so the symmetry stops reading as scaffolding.
7. (DIALOGUE-DIAGNOSIS) (a) Replace "brisk now, the deadline part of her taking the wheel" (131) with a plain tag or action - the clicking keys two lines later already carry the mode switch; "Noted," Nia said. suffices. (b) Cut "flat, no varnish" (125) - "June read it off the right page." is complete; the list itself is already flat (bare figures; the only adjective is "no real heat").

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## SPECIAL CH20 CHECKS (summary verdicts)

- Ruth/Sam care without advice: HOLDS as content. The only imperatives they utter are logistical; when June announces the deadline and forbids opinions (49), the answers are "We have a car." and "And a hand truck if you need it." - material room, zero counsel. Ruth names her silence's cost without prescribing (43). The scene's failures are polish (order 1) and captioning (order 2), not advice.
- Asha / Nia / June distinctness: HOLDS at the lexical level (freight-floor rates vs. columns/payroll vs. notebook/press) but DEGRADES at the polish level, where all three converge on topper-trading rhythm; restored by orders 4-6.
- Nia refusal plain and speakable: FAILS as drafted - order 5.
- No diagnosis / therapy-speak / "follow your heart" / fake-sharp volley: diagnosis FAILS three times (orders 3, 7); therapy-speak - none found (June's "That's what scares me about it" is plain fear-naming; swept for boundaries/processing/holding-space diction, zero hits); "follow your heart" and refusal-inspiration - none (Nia never romanticizes; checked every turn); fake-sharp volleys FAIL (orders 1, 4, 5, 6).
- Scene 04 job/studio terms followable as dialogue: HOLDS - mode 6 CLEAN above; a cold reader can state what each party asked, learned, or refused: Nia asked why and what beat her offer, learned the counter, and got a referral; June refused the job, not the person, and committed to the worse-paid path with the referral as her care move.

## OVERALL: BLOCKING (7 findings)

Per the audit contract, findings resolve via opposing-model rewrite routed from the numbered orders above; self-repair by the drafting lane is not an accepted resolution.
