# Dialogue Doctor - Chapter 20 (No Advice / Keys Here)

id: dialogue_doctor | owner: claude | chapter: 20
target: `output/chapters/chapter_20.md`
manifest: scenes 02, 03, 04 required (`output/critiques/codex/dialogue_scene_manifest.md`). Manifest spans (24-59 / 62-93 / 96-145) drift a few lines from the current file's breaks (23 / 61 / 95 / 151) — post-manifest edits; scene content matches. Scene 01 (objects/math, no dialogue) and scene 05 (one quoted text) not required per manifest.
calibration honored: `output/tics.md` Ch15 row (Nia zinger density is documented drift), Ch19 row (care must stay uncomfortable and embodied), `chapter_20.claude_tic_audit.md` tic 10 order ("preserve only if it remains speakable" — ruled on below), Ch20 prompt anti-tics (mechanical sweep of load-bearing / follow your heart / something shifted / a beat / smirk / chuckle / breath / air changed / tension: zero hits).

---

SCENE 02 / June's apartment, Ruth and Sam, blue dish and catalog box (lines 24-60):

- 1. Voice convergence: CLEAN — read with attributions covered; Ruth is clipped time-and-terms ("We're double-parked. This is a two-minute visit unless you'd like it to be longer"), Sam is physical/space ("What's the freight?", "And a hand truck if you need it"), June is self-aimed joke plus compressed logistics ("I'd offer coffee but I'd be lying about the milk"); strongest counter-candidate: June's "Two minutes is right" picking up Ruth's "two-minute visit" — survives as spoken concession-by-pickup, and the milk joke that follows is material neither Ruth nor Sam could say.
- 2. Monotone Q/A rhythm: CLEAN — one true question in the scene ("What's the freight?"), the rest offers and statements at sharply varied lengths (June's eight-sentence catalog instruction against Ruth's "All right."); strongest counter-candidate: "We have a car." / "And a hand truck if you need it." — two short beats in sequence, survives because they are additive offers from different speakers answering June's non-request, not a volley.
- 3. Missing interiority: CLEAN — June's mind runs through the exchange: "June heard herself and kept going anyway, plainly, because there was no version of the sentence that got easier" (line 33), and the mid-scene dish-flaw digression (line 37) is her lived relation to what returning it costs; strongest counter-candidate: during Ruth's confession, "June looked at the receipt so she wouldn't look at Ruth" — survives; the aversion is the interiority, not a dark patch.
- 4. Questions-as-statements: CLEAN — "What's the freight?" is asked to be answered and is answered with freight facts; strongest counter-candidate: Ruth's "...unless you'd like it to be longer" — an option folded into a statement, survives because it is a genuine offer June can and does decline.
- 5. Fake-McCarthy minimalism: CLEAN — attribution never stripped; clipped Ruth lines carry weight the scene has earned (the engine is help-without-opinion); strongest counter-candidate: "We came for the dish." — stark and pointed, survives because it releases June from explaining, is followable as text (plain-speech floor, guide §2), and Ruth's card licenses exact short lines.
- 6. Jargon-trading without translation: CLEAN — no world-terms traded; strongest counter-candidate: "could you leave them with Sonia?" — a name, not a term, weighable from studio context; survives.
- 7. Attribution opacity: CLEAN — three speakers, every line tagged or action-anchored ("Sam, at the door, hefted the box again"); strongest counter-candidate: the untagged "And a hand truck if you need it" — survives, anchored by Sam's box action in the same beat.
- FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN — full cut-list run; strongest counter-candidate: Ruth's "This fall I noticed things. I kept them to myself and called it manners." — aphorism-adjacent, but it is Ruth's one licensed editorial-sharp line this appearance (style bible cap: one per appearance; Ch06 and Ch11 caps were tracked the same way), it performs the chapter card's required cost-of-silence naming, and "Some of it was. Some of it was easier for me." immediately roughens it into admission rather than stamp. Second candidate considered: "We have a car." — survives; literally true (double-parked), and the offer is the content, not the shape.
- INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — rule 9 tested both directions: interiority reacts (the mid-scene reversal "Actually, no. Tell Mara I'm bringing the dish myself Tuesday" is decision-as-reaction) and nothing is explained twice; strongest counter-candidate: "She straightened the strap of her bag, which did not need straightening" — a narrator gloss on Ruth's tell, survives as June's optical precision but sits one caption from announcing a care move; no order, do not add a second such gloss in revision.
- SPECIAL CH20 CHECKS: care without advice verified line by line — Ruth/Sam's closest approach to directing June is "You can leave that part out," which removes an obligation rather than steering a choice; the car/hand-truck offers attach to either outcome of the decision. Cost of their own silence named in Ruth's admission. No therapy-speak. No dialogue diagnosis — nearest candidate: narration "watched her read it and watched her decline to read it out loud" (line 41) — survives the zero-tolerance rule because it characterizes Ruth's conduct toward the objects on the table, not anyone's phrasing, rhythm, or delivery.

SCENE 03 / phone, June and Asha, referral consent + New York yes (lines 62-94):

- 1. Voice convergence: CLEAN — Asha is environment-interrupted imperative shorthand ("Talk fast, I'm holding a door with my whole body," "Say the studio clause again"); June is prepared and compressed; strongest counter-candidate: Asha's "the north window's honest light," which June's own narration later reprises ("Honest light. You couldn't flatter a canvas in it") — survives because both are working painters, north-light-honesty is shared studio parlance, and June's reprise is her checking Asha's claim against Dana's photo; this is the pair's single point of lexical contact and must stay the only one.
- 2. Monotone Q/A rhythm: CLEAN — rhythm broken by the gate, a pallet jack, a self-answered question, and one long logistics block against one-line replies; strongest counter-candidate: the "First one's a question... / Okay. Second thing?" scaffold — survives; June announced the two-item structure herself and Asha's prompt is schedule impatience, not volley symmetry.
- 3. Missing interiority: CLEAN — thinner than scene 02 but present exactly at the pressure point: "June looked at the left page of the notebook, at GOOD in her own handwriting" before conceding "It was both this morning" — mind reacting to Asha's warning, not explaining it; strongest counter-candidate: Asha's logistics block passes without June's commentary — survives because the scene coda is the reaction (she transcribes it: "DEC 10--DANA... FEB = coat"), and rule 9 asks for orientation, not narration per line.
- 4. Questions-as-statements: CLEAN — "Why aren't you taking it?" is genuinely meant and pressed ("That's not me being polite"); strongest counter-candidate: "Who writes that?" — self-answered ("Nia Torres, apparently"), survives as spoken astonishment mid-freight-bay, not manufactured portent.
- 5. Fake-McCarthy minimalism: CLEAN — "Yes," Asha said, no gap at all — the speed is card-true characterization, not starkness; attribution and ambient anchoring continuous; strongest counter-candidate: Asha hanging up "before the word was finished" — survives, earned by the established load-in frame.
- 6. Jargon-trading without translation: CLEAN — every term weighed in-line: net-45 glossed twice as money-in-March; deposit math delivered as one figure ("$980 all in with the wall"); the W-9 placed as a due-date object; bad heat translated to consequence ("the radiator is decorative. Wear the coat inside until February"); strongest counter-candidate: "Corners like a surgeon." — install-floor shorthand for precision hanging, survives as speakable shop praise; hold Asha's similes at this density.
- 7. Attribution opacity: CLEAN — two voices in distinct registers on a phone frame; strongest counter-candidate: the untagged "Okay. Second thing?" — survives, no other possible speaker.
- FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN, narrowly — strongest counter-candidate: June's "That's tomorrow's phone call. Today's question is whether you want in the sentence." — the tidiest construction in the scene, arriving exactly when Asha asks the real question; survives because the deflection is visible as deflection (the first sentence names the postponement plainly, per guide §2), "the sentence" is a concrete referent set up by "if you'd want your name sent," and Asha refuses to be managed by it two lines later. Also weighed: "Not a favor. A clause." — fragment-stamp shape, survives as the precise distinction the offer letter makes, answering the exact question asked; and "Send my name because I'm qualified. If you're trying to feel less bad, don't." — Asha's card-mandated warning, blunt rather than shaped. Do not let integration polish any of these three further.
- INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — the scene is transactional by design (chapter card: arithmetic carries the pressure); June's GOOD glance and the coda's self-deprecating notation ("It was a joke where the answer went, which was at least her own handwriting") keep the reader inside her; no stronger counter-candidate found.
- SPECIAL CH20 CHECKS: Asha distinct from Nia across scenes — strongest cross-scene counter-candidate: Asha's "Say the studio clause again" vs. Nia's "Walk me through it" (scene 04), same demand-function in both mouths; survives because the registers split cleanly — floor-speech verifying a term against meeting-speech requesting a rationale — and everything around them diverges (freight noise and imperatives vs. office sentences and deadlines). Both distinct from June's compressed self-framing. No inspirational art talk from Asha; her one warning is practical, not therapeutic.

SCENE 04 / phone, June and Nia, the refusal and the referral (lines 96-150):

- 1. Voice convergence: CLEAN — Nia's clipped professional prompts ("Torres." / "But." / "Noted.") never bleed into June's reasoned middle-length turns; strongest counter-candidate: June's "You win the math." echoing Nia's coinage — survives in isolation as concession-by-echo, a real spoken move; but it is the first tile in this call's callback pattern (see FAKE-SHARP).
- 2. Monotone Q/A rhythm: CLEAN — prompt/explanation alternation with real variance in length and function (one-word "But." against the four-sentence keys confession against the read-off counter); strongest counter-candidate: "That's a worse offer." / "It is." — survives; flat agreement is what this moment costs June, and rule 7 protects unremarkable concession.
- 3. Missing interiority: CLEAN — June touches the TASKER page mid-call, turns the receipt print-side up during her own refusal, and exits into consequence ("If February went badly, it would go badly in her own handwriting"); strongest counter-candidate: her mind goes quiet for the six lines of Nia's referral logistics — survives because that stretch is Nia's material and June's reaction is the next scene's first action (the text to Asha).
- 4. Questions-as-statements: CLEAN, narrowly — strongest counter-candidate: "You know what I'm going to ask next." — a position delivered as meta-prompt; survives because it is shared history rather than portent (the Ch15 "if you say no, send me someone good" condition both parties remember), and June converts it instantly into concrete referral facts; Nia must not get a second such move in this book.
- 5. Fake-McCarthy minimalism: CLEAN — "Torres." as a phone answer is professional realism, not performed starkness; attribution and office-noise anchoring throughout; strongest counter-candidate: "Then she hung up first." — clipped exit, survives because June's narration registers what it changed (the clean answer gone), so the silence is marked, not posed.
- 6. Jargon-trading without translation: CLEAN — the counter-offer read-off glosses every term with consequence: "invoiced the 25th, paid in March," "February is a blank line in my notebook" (literal — the FEB = line exists on the page in scene 01); "She itemizes" is weighable from Nia's own gloss ("That's already more than most references"); strongest counter-candidate: "If the program ever needs freelance install, I itemize and I'm fast" — compressed trade-talk, survives because both halves were priced for the reader by Ch15 and scene 03. The scene 04 job/studio terms stay followable as dialogue; no brochure block found.
- 7. Attribution opacity: CLEAN — two speakers, tagged or anchored; strongest counter-candidate: the untagged "But." — survives; only Nia can be prompting there.
- FAKE-SHARP: FAIL — two exchanges, same disease:
  (a) "You told me once you were offering work, not absolution. That was fair, and this is the same thing back: I'm declining work, not you." (June to Nia, the refusal's center, line 133) — a quote volley: June retrieves Nia's Ch15 aphorism, returns a mirrored antithesis, and labels the maneuver ("this is the same thing back"). Cut-list bullet 1 (exchange built to deliver a compact aphorism); the Ch20 special ban on fake-sharp quote volley; Rule 8 — the line lands cleanly at the one moment the refusal must arrive with friction, and June's card says she compresses when exposed, reaching for craft nouns, not balanced rhetoric. The refusal around it is plain and survives ("In five years I'd be good at that job and painting would be the thing I say I'm getting back to" — self-indicting, speakable, its rehearsal diegetically earned by the notebook sentence that "died of length"); this antithesis is the workshopped tile. Ruling on the tic-audit's tic-10 hold: the "You win the math" echo remains speakable and is preserved; this exchange does not and is not.
  (b) "'For the record,' Nia said, 'the wall was real.' / 'I know.' / 'Good.'" (lines 143-147) — a closing button whose only job is a compact certification, mirrored against June's earlier "I want that on the record" (line 113) so the call is framed record-to-record. Cut-list bullet 1; "quotable but not speakable" is arguable, but the composed symmetry is not — and Ch15's audit history (tics.md: "Nia zinger density | repaired... 12 polished constructions") marks exactly this drift as the book's documented Nia failure. The information is already on the table ("The after-hours access is in writing"), and the plain, on-card exit already exists ("Have her email before one. I have payroll at eleven.").
  Pattern evidence, cited so the rewriter sees the density: "win the math" echo + "you know what I'm going to ask next" completion + on-the-record/for-the-record mirror — three callback structures in one call; (a) and (b) are where professional shorthand tips into composition.
- INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — the pre-call daylight-test paragraphs (lines 101-103) orient without pre-explaining the call, and in-call interiority is object-borne (TASKER page, receipt); strongest counter-candidate: "That was why she'd written it in numbers." — one gloss on an already-shown fact, survives at this density; add none.
- SPECIAL CH20 CHECKS: the Nia refusal is otherwise plain and speakable — evidence: "I'm calling to say no," "I'd still be the person with keys," "In five years I'd be good at that job and painting would be the thing I say I'm getting back to" — all sayable on a phone under pressure; the failure above is confined to the two flagged exchanges. No "follow your heart" — Nia's nearest approach is "when it opens, come see it," an invitation, not a benediction. No therapy-speak. Nia is not a strawman: "That doesn't have to happen" and "That's a worse offer" are real pushback June concedes. Weighed for dialogue diagnosis: June's "That was fair" about Nia's Ch15 line — survives the zero-tolerance rule; it rates the position (offering work, not absolution as a stance), not the sentence's craft or delivery. It is deleted anyway under Revision Order 1.

REVISION ORDERS:

1. Scene 04, line 133 — "You told me once you were offering work, not absolution. That was fair, and this is the same thing back: I'm declining work, not you." — FAKE-SHARP (quote volley + workshopped antithesis at the refusal's center). Rewrite (opposing lane): delete the retrieval of Nia's Ch15 line and the mirrored "declining work, not you" antithesis entirely; do not replace with any "X, not Y" construction or any reference to what Nia "told me once." June's card under exposure is compression and craft nouns — let her state the not-personal fact plainly and unbalanced (one direct sentence per the plain-speech floor, e.g. that the no is about her own keys problem, not about Nia or the program), then land on the practical tail, which is already correct in voice and must be kept: "If the program ever needs freelance install, I itemize and I'm fast." The receipt-turning action beat in the same paragraph stays.
2. Scene 04, lines 143-147 — "'For the record,' Nia said, 'the wall was real.' / 'I know.' / 'Good.'" — FAKE-SHARP (aphorism button; record/record mirror with June's line 113 "I want that on the record"). Rewrite (opposing lane): cut the exchange and let the call end on Nia's on-card exit ("Good. Have her email before one. I have payroll at eleven." Then she hung up first.). If a sincerity beat is judged necessary for the no-strawman requirement, it must be carried by a concrete term in Nia's money/time/keys register (her card: concrete nouns, direct money talk), not by a stamped abstraction — and in that case June's "I want that on the record" (line 113) must also be varied to plain speech so no record-to-record frame survives in any version.

OVERALL: BLOCKING (2 findings)
