# Claude-Tic Audit - Chapter 06 Raw Draft

Target: `output/drafts/claude/chapter_06.round_01.md`

Mechanical input: raw gate `open=2`, `watch=71`. WATCH counts: repeated descriptor 32; titlecase heading 1; heart/chest 2; hands/body 9; trailing participle 4; uncontracted casual dialogue 3; transition verbs 3; and/but start 2; em dash dialogue 10; throat/breath 1; writing jargon 2; temperature 1; em dash comma list 1.

## Per-Tic Verdicts

- FOUND - tic 1 em-dash overuse - 10 instances - examples: line 51 `Not the lease, the - overlap`; line 85 `samples - a deliberate little spotlight`; line 111 `week five, say... - who can she tell`; line 135 `one - he knew it from Sonia's`; line 155 `beside - beside... - and her pace`. ORDER: convert most appositional/thought dashes to periods/commas; keep only true interruption or high-pressure syntactic fracture.
- CLEAR - tic 2 shimmer prose - checked all descriptive passages - nearest miss: line 85 `a deliberate little spotlight on forty different ways to finish an edge`. It is concrete fixture/window description and the chapter's single allowed light image, not atmospheric drift.
- CLEAR - tic 3 recurring sentence-mood verbs - checked for mattered/earned/weighed/carried and equivalents - nearest miss: line 13 `It stays where it is.` This is Mara's practical scarf order, not mood diction.
- CLEAR - tic 4 default-elegant noun phrases - checked for `a kind of`, `something like`, `small/quiet/careful X` - nearest miss: line 53 `the small luxury again`. It names a social pleasure too abstractly but is singular and concretely paid by default inclusion. No pattern-level default found.
- FOUND - tic 5 softeners/qualifiers - 3 instances - line 7 `decided that counted`; line 53 `For two or three seconds`; line 155 `for a second longer`. ORDER: replace approximate softeners with action or cut; the chapter was explicitly warned off measured-duration scaffolds.
- FOUND - tic 6 narrator-as-philosopher intrusion - 2 instances - line 53 `the small luxury again: included by default...`; line 59 `He'd gotten the warmth. She'd done the work.` ORDER: keep the insight but make it arise from Theo's observable behavior and June's correction, not a general theorem about the false couple category.
- FOUND - tic 7 theme-explanation gloss - 4 instances - line 27 `that was the thing he'd have had trouble explaining`; line 105 `correction with no weight`; line 115 `That was the whole problem`; line 123 `the question stands`. ORDER: delete captions after beats; let route card, coffee order, and Ruth's question carry theme.
- CLEAR - tic 8 recursive negation - checked all negation clusters - nearest miss: line 155 `not half a step ahead, not narrating the shortcut`. This is a two-item behavioral correction under pressure; watch, but not recursive triadic negation.
- CLEAR - tic 9 self-aware meta-clause - checked for `if that was the word`, `if there was a word`, equivalent self-commentary - nearest miss: line 95 `So Theo walked with Ruth.` No meta-clause pattern found.
- FOUND - tic 10 over-balanced structures - 4 instances - line 9 `He hadn't laminated it. He'd considered it...`; line 111 `her cup hands were still; everything about Ruth was still`; line 147 `Ruth said good night to everyone equally, which was somehow worse`; line 157 `One door... one route...`. ORDER: break symmetry where it becomes rhetorical display; keep only pressure-revealing repetition.
- FOUND - tic 11 profundity/stillness ending - final paragraph, line 161 `He stood at the top of the stairs... and kept looking.` ORDER: end on action/decision/consequence: Theo moves without a route or starts building June an exit path, not a stationary looking pose.
- CLEAR - tic 12 default lovely/quiet/small register - checked scene pressure around Ruth and coffee counter - nearest miss: line 53 `warm air coming up from a grate`. It risks softness but is grounded in Theo's momentary social pleasure and not a scene-wide softening.
- CLEAR - tic 13 default physical reaction beats - checked for heartbeat/throat/jaw/breath substitutions - nearest miss: line 83 `eight people breathing on three paintings`. This is room occupancy, not a body-reaction beat; still should be revised because it personifies the room.

## Book-Specific Additions

- FOUND - zero-tolerance mechanical blockers - 2 instances - line 77 `before he knew it`; line 97 `the way they did when`. ORDER: replace before integration.
- FOUND - `, which` / evaluative-which drift - 9 raw instances - lines 3, 17, 35, 61, 71, 83, 93, 147, 159. ORDER: convert most to finite sentences or character speech; preserve only speakable dialogue instances.
- FOUND - recycled generic ensemble connective - 1 instance - line 23 `The group spread out the way eight people do...` ORDER: replace with actual room mechanics.
- FOUND - dialogue-diagnosis-adjacent captions - 2 instances - line 105 `correction with no weight`; line 111 `decided exactly how much to say`. ORDER: rewrite as physical/action evidence; Ruth can be exact without the narrator rating speech.

## WATCH Reconciliation

Mechanical gate's two open findings are accepted as true blockers. WATCH em-dash density is elevated and matches tic 1. Hands/body count is mostly literal route/card/coffee function, but line 77's hand movement and line 97's hands phrase need repair. Heart/chest hits are `chest pocket`, literal object location, not emotional reaction. Throat/breath hit line 83 should be reworded because the room image is generic.

## Chapter Verdict

TICS-FOUND (9). Blocks raw-draft acceptance. Proceed by Codex synthesis/repair from Claude base; no full Claude redraft required unless later Dialogue Doctor finds structural dialogue failure.
