Audit complete and written to `output/critiques/claude/chapter_15.dialogue_doctor.md` (the path the dialogue scene manifest lists as missing). The full audit:

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# Dialogue Doctor — Chapter 15: Keys Elsewhere

Target: `output/chapters/chapter_15.md` (integrated base) read cold against raw provenance `output/drafts/claude/chapter_15.round_01.md`.
Manifest coverage: scene 01 is the chapter's only manifest scene (lines 2–117; 28 dialogue lines / 39 quoted utterances). Sub-exchanges examined inside it: (a) the Nia phone call (lines 15–80), (b) the Asha text thread (lines 85–93), (c) the group thread (line 99), (d) the Theo text thread (lines 101–105). The reading guide names no chat-format exclusions, so the full failure list was applied to the text threads as well.

**SCENE 01 (whole chapter — Nia call + three text threads):**

- **1 VOICE CONVERGENCE: CLEAN** — read with attributions covered. Nia carries medium-mass information sentences built on institutional money/time/key nouns ("W-2, full-time, six months funded. The board approved it Monday."); June carries clipped noun-questions and deflections ("Define run." / "Hypothetically. Keep going. Money."). The texters separate cleanly: Asha drops question marks and compresses ("pays net-45 bc of course it does. You in or do I give your slot to Dario"), Priya runs caps enthusiasm ("40 copies LIVE. they look INCREDIBLE."), Theo writes complete logistical sentences with a ruling in them ("one occupied by a coat that I ruled counts… as promised"). Strongest counter-candidate: the opening volley where both women go deadpan — "I had a thing with panels." / "For two days." — survives because the roles differ (June manufactures an excuse-joke, Nia flatly declines it) and the lexical fields never blur: June's nouns are shop-floor (panels, spring, grease), Nia's are institutional (board, grants, line item).

- **2 MONOTONE Q/A RHYTHM: CLEAN** — mapped every volley of the call. June asks compact questions but answers vary from one word to full blocks; June twice breaks the pattern by answering with a diagnosis instead of a question ("That's a spring or it's twenty years of grease where grease shouldn't be. Either way it's an afternoon.") and once by going silent until Nia retrieves her ("June." / "I'm here. I'm taking notes."); Nia volunteers two blocks unprompted (keys/after-eight; the deadline pivot off "Which brings me to the unfun part."). Strongest counter-candidate: the run of noun-questions — "Define run." … "Money." … "Renewal?" — survives because the cut-list targets noun-question/**portentous**-answer pairs and these answers are practical, not portentous, while the questions are visibly June's note-taking register with the page on-screen between volleys.

- **3 MISSING INTERIORITY: CLEAN** — the focalizer's mind stays lit through the exchange: the margin math ("The math was doing itself in the margin anyway… and it came out the way Nia knew it would"), the note line that betrays her ("The line that interested her was *true up the Vandercook.* Not the wall. The press."), and a lapse long enough that Nia has to call her back. Strongest counter-candidate for absence: the renewal/fairness stretch (lines 49–55) runs several turns without interior comment — survives because June's pen has just been placed on-screen ("The pen sat at the end of it.") and the stretch ends in her reaction line.

- **4 QUESTIONS-AS-STATEMENTS: CLEAN** — checked every question for positions disguised as questions. June's flat-delivered questions ("What's the gripper doing exactly," she said. "Sticking open or sticking shut?") are genuine information-seeking, answered and written down. Strongest counter-candidate: "Can I ask the gripper question differently. If I take this. Walk me through a Tuesday." — survives because it openly names itself as a request, produces a concrete answer the scene then uses, and manufactures no portent; the portent stays in June's notebook where it belongs.

- **5 FAKE-McCARTHY MINIMALISM: CLEAN** — attribution density is normal for a two-party phone call; clipped lines occur where phone rhythm earns them. Strongest counter-candidate: the unattributed run "Renewal?" → "Decent odds, not guaranteed…" → "You're being very fair about the part where it might evaporate." → "Because I need you to say yes for real reasons or no for real reasons." — survives because alternation is strict two-party, content identifies each speaker, and grounding resumes at the next pressure shift ("A chair creaked on her end.").

- **6 JARGON-TRADING WITHOUT TRANSLATION: CLEAN** — every world-term is weighed for the reader in-scene: the Vandercook gripper is translated immediately by June's diagnosis ("That's a spring or it's twenty years of grease…"); "net-45" is pre-translated by the scrap on the table ("Kessler, armory, Jan, pays late") and Asha's own "bc of course it does"; "true up" is glossed by consequence ("because the high schoolers will find the problem as soon as it sticks"). Strongest counter-candidate: "The ground's faced and drying" in Theo's text — survives because the twelve-by-sixteen ground is carried Chapter 14 material restated in this chapter's receipt paragraph (line 109).

- **7 ATTRIBUTION OPACITY: CLEAN** — never lost a speaker; text threads are sender-named in narration (Asha; Priya; Mara; Theo on a separate thread). Strongest counter-candidate: Mara "replying with the photo itself" carries no words — survives; it is an image, not an utterance.

- **FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN** — ran all 28 dialogue lines against the cut-list, with the raw draft open for provenance. The integration pass already stripped the zinger layer, verified line by line: "interviewing people who list 'passion' under skills" → "postings, panels, and six weeks of interviews"; "a reference so good it'll be suspicious" → "a detailed reference from me"; "a screwdriver and an apology" → "a screwdriver"; "passed inspection out of pity" → the filter schedule; "the gripper bar doesn't care about anybody's reasons" → the voice-card sample "If you say no, send me someone good. I still have a program to keep open." Strongest surviving counter-candidates, each ruled on:
  - "The coat counts. Coats are people who left their position marked." (June to Theo, line 104) — the chapter's most composed line. Survives the quotable-but-not-speakable test because it is written, not spoken: label-draft copy for *After Class*, a working register the two established in Chapter 14, and Theo's reply uses it as content ("That's going in the label notes") rather than admiring it. It is also the chapter's one oblique line, inside the reading guide's ~2-per-chapter spice budget; the Nia call is direct throughout.
  - "I've heard it. People say it near me." (June, line 39) — a deflecting joke at a moment June's card licenses one ("jokes as smoke screen" under pressure). The raw draft's setup line ("which I know is a sentence you haven't heard in a while") was cut in integration; the reply still parses cold — benefits are sentences said near her, not to her. Related seam checked: '"I can do math," June agreed' (line 43) lost its raw antecedent ("You can do math") when Nia's line became "I'll spare you the rent math. The numbers are in range." — survives because the implication ("you can do it yourself") is on the surface; followable without decoding.
  - "Noon. Eat lunch after." (Nia, closing line) — button-positioned but speakable and practical-warm, square in Nia's card ("candid, warm in practical terms"); it carries an instruction, not an aphorism.

- **INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN in both directions** — presence established under mode 3; the over-explaining direction was checked against rule 9's second clause. "Her pulse had gone straight past the part of the offer that was supposed to be for her and settled into the part that kept the room usable" (line 67) names the trap that the next paragraph dramatizes (the eight-fifteen back room, the woman at the press with a rag) and the closer reprises (line 113: "a woman at the press who would not turn around"). That is the same insight rendered three times — but line 67 reacts to the page of notes, line 69 is the card-required realization arising from concrete job details and June's painterly eye rather than a thesis line, and the reprise is the card's mandated close. Not interiority explaining the dialogue twice; the residual density is already routed to Thought Development pressure per the Claude-tic audit (finding 5), which is the correct lane for any trim.

**FOCUSED CHECKS:**

- **Nia direct, practical, respectful, not a strawman or advice oracle: PASS** — she discloses the downside unprompted ("Decent odds, not guaranteed. We're two grants and a city line item."), refuses the oracle role in terms ("I'm not going to talk you into it and I'm not going to talk you out of it."), and her one piece of pressure is calendared, not emotional ("I can't hold the room open past the fourth and still get someone in by February"). No "follow your heart," no romanticized art poverty; two of her card's sample lines appear nearly verbatim ("Pay's not glamorous. That's one of its virtues." / "I'm offering you work, June, not a rescue.").
- **June visually/craft exact, dry, self-protective, no therapist turn: PASS** — every exposed moment converts to material questions ("Hypothetically. Keep going. Money.") or notes; her self-knowledge stays entirely in interiority and is never spoken aloud to anyone. Rule 4 contraction policy honored across all speakers; nearest full-form candidate is Nia's "I want to be clear that's in the actual job description," which is deliberate emphasis the rule licenses.
- **Nia call followable as job terms and emotional pressure: PASS** — a cold reader can list the offer: run a Tasker Street printshop/community arts program (programs + fabrication, studio operations), W-2 full-time, six months funded, benefits after ninety days, likely January start with give past mid-December, keys on day one, after-hours studio access in the written job description, renewal decent-not-guaranteed on two grants and a city line item, answer due Friday, December 4, noon. Why it tempts is equally legible: rent in range, peer respect ("This is why I called you and not the other names on my list"), and a wall she doesn't have to ask permission to use — with June's notebook showing which part actually pulls her (the press, not the wall).
- **Dialogue diagnosis (zero tolerance): PASS** after a line-by-line sweep of dialogue and surrounding narration. Three borderline candidates examined and cleared: "You're being very fair about the part where it might evaporate." (June, line 53) targets Nia's disclosure conduct — person and work, not her sentence; "June heard herself and stopped" (line 35) reports self-monitoring and immediately shows the action taken ("Hypothetically.") with no captioning of the line's quality; "That's going in the label notes" (Theo, line 105) adopts content into a working document — doing something with what he heard, the reading guide's sanctioned form of perceptiveness. No character or narration comments on phrasing, rhythm, carefulness, line quality, or delivery anywhere in the chapter.
- **Texts in-speaker, not exposition delivery: PASS** — Asha's two texts carry rate/load-in/room specifics in her shorthand and end in real asks ("You in or do I give your slot to Dario"); the Dana/Ridgewood update is a lead she owes June from the Chapter 9 scrap already on the table, not new-world exposition; Priya and Theo are register-distinct in one line each, and Theo's stays inside the chair-count/label lane the packet requires — no offer leakage, no relationship talk.

**REVISION ORDERS:** none — no FAIL verdicts.

**OVERALL: CLEAN**
