# Chapter 13 Initial Draft Assessment

Claude draft: `output/drafts/claude/chapter_13.round_01.md`
Word count: 3,228
Raw mechanical gate: FAIL, open=2, WATCH=103.

## Keep

- Overall architecture works: assignment epigraph, June painting Theo's airshaft, Theo painting the erased wall, compact showcase announcement, `After Class` subject agreement, flyer-photo pressure, public cover kiss, and Nia notification as final beat.
- June's painting process has strong scene-specific material: cat-bent screen with no cat, seven uneven clothespins, the chicken-thigh ghost, and the theft-risk around making Theo's memory kinder.
- Theo's canvas mostly obeys Ch12: no noble June figure, outlet plate and screws foregrounded, green/orange/primer/dead-salmon process visible.
- The `After Class` agreement lands in the right register: same room, two orientations, not yet a title or metaphor speech.
- The cover-kiss mechanism correctly avoids a dare or explicit request; June chooses the public repair herself.

## Blocking Repairs Before Integration

1. Mechanical gate:
   - One-sentence paragraph gravity cap: raw draft has 5 one-sentence paragraphs in scene 1 against cap 2.
   - Markdown bold in prose: `**Nia Okafor.**`.
2. Continuity:
   - Nia surname is wrong. Canon is Nia Torres.
   - Chicken thighs price is wrong. Ch12/canon says eighty-nine cents a pound, not 99.
   - Theo's card has been under Sonia's rubber band one night, not a week.
   - June's phone message must not make the full offer sound already formally accepted by a third party in a way that collapses Ch15's offer-test beat. It can make the Philadelphia path concrete; full terms and decision stay later.
3. Register / tics:
   - Legal/publicity figures return: `under oath`, `settlement`, `evidence`, `audited the kiss`, `file would not close`. Ch12/Ch07/Ch11 already spent legal/clerical language.
   - Several narration lines caption significance: `operated like surgery`, `installed a countdown in everyone's chest`, `that was the thing`, `the problem with it`, `things that had not been introduced`.
   - Kiss paragraph over-explains its own craft metaphor and risks sounding like a technical audit rather than June under pressure.
   - Body/face tells are elevated: jaw, chest, eyes, collarbone, curled fingers, hands empty. Some can survive as literal blocking; density needs thinning.
4. Character/plot calibration:
   - Mara's `Luis says Theo carries things...` risks wise-NPC overread and says too much about Theo.
   - Odile's lines are high-density and numerous; keep one or two strong instructions, thin extra quotability.
   - Ruth's `You look insured` is good but may use her one sharp line in a chapter where she should stay light/background; likely keep if audits permit.
   - Priya/Ben appear without revealing apartment outcome; preserve that.

## Integration Direction

- Base the accepted chapter on Claude's draft, not a blank restart.
- Because Chapter 13's lane is `dual-draft`, create a Codex parallel/counter-draft before final synthesis. The counter-draft should test lower-gloss handling of:
  - opening memory-painting setup,
  - Theo canvas reveal,
  - flyer-photo pressure and kiss,
  - Nia/Torres phone close.
- Final accepted version should keep the emotional sequence and many concrete paint details from Claude while replacing continuity errors, legal/clerical metaphors, and the over-explanatory kiss aftermath.
