# Chapter 12 Positive Prose Repair Memo

Source audit: `output/critiques/claude/chapter_12.positive_prose.md`
Disposition: accepted all nine line-local orders.

Repairs made:

1. Removed the check-voiding simile from the Coney Island card and replaced later `voided` vocabulary with `crossed-out`.
2. Rewrote the unwritten-memory setup as literal two-day behavior with the card and pen; cut `Pain was not the problem` and the early usefulness diagnosis.
3. Replaced the `closing argument` legal figure with a literal accusation aimed at someone absent; deleted `fully formatted`.
4. Cut the narrator explanation of quotation marks after `you'd never know`.
5. Replaced June's slop-sink aphorism with literal procedure: almost-clear water, never fully clear, ten more minutes, packed tray.
6. Deleted the schedule/performance arc-summary epigram before Theo looks at `PARTNER`.
7. Replaced the hidden-panel abstraction with physical facts: panel in place, unlabeled, painted side to the wall.
8. Cut `Theo sat with that` and let the lamp image follow June's line directly.
9. Replaced the train-paragraph thesis about `the right order` with the literal paint sequence: orange going gray, green reading through coat one.

Mechanical check after repair:

`bash scripts/quality_gate.sh output/chapters/chapter_12.md`

Result: PASS, open=0, allowlisted=0, watch=50.

Verification needed:

Run Positive Prose round 2 on the repaired chapter and promote the clean round to canonical if it clears.

## Round 2 Follow-Up

Source audit: `output/critiques/claude/chapter_12.positive_prose_round2.md`
Disposition: accepted all eight remaining orders.

Additional repairs made:

1. Replaced the Coney Island verdict-fragments with concrete omitted material: the fourth-floor kitchen window and brick wall.
2. Compressed the Tuesday-performance forecast to present action: Theo writes `fine`, sees Mara across tomorrow's table, and crosses the word out.
3. Trimmed Theo's self-analysis to plain sanctioned lines: `Nobody asked me to do it`, wanting to get the wall right, and `I used to draw all the time`.
4. Cut June's self-extracting line `That was me doing the job well`; kept only the manager's `you'd never know` and June's `And she was right` before the outlet-plate redirect.
5. Replaced `transaction` / `deposition` staging captions with literal desk/worktable blocking.
6. Changed `The memory was nine years old` to literal attribution: Theo was nine in the fourth-floor kitchen.
7. Removed Odile-card intent caption; extended literal crowding around the final `- O.`.
8. Ended the lamp sentence at the cards being brightest in the room.
9. Repaired the one-sentence-paragraph CAP hit caused by the cuts by merging Theo's seated beat into his opening dialogue paragraph.

Mechanical check after round 2 repairs:

`bash scripts/quality_gate.sh output/chapters/chapter_12.md`

Result: PASS, open=0, allowlisted=0, watch=45.

Verification needed:

Run Positive Prose round 3 on the repaired chapter and promote the clean round to canonical if it clears.

## Round 3 Follow-Up

Source audit: `output/critiques/claude/chapter_12.positive_prose_round3.md`
Disposition: accepted all six remaining orders.

Additional repairs made:

1. Cut the free-standing lamp/blank-cards significance beat.
2. Replaced the compressed `fine`/Mara cipher with a legible present-pressure beat: Mara's tomorrow question, the cover line that still fits, and `just the assignment` no longer fitting because each now holds the other's memory.
3. Cut the `too small for what she had put on it` weight-caption.
4. Replaced Theo's `announcement with a correction attached` epigram with typed-and-deleted group-thread attempts.
5. Replaced the closing epigram with a painter's working note: `GREEN FIRST. ORANGE INTERVAL RIGHT SIDE. DEAD SALMON BEFORE WHITE.`
6. Cut the tote-strap `as if` explanation.
7. Repaired the mechanical gate hits from the first replacement by removing `, then` and the `He could` echo.

Mechanical check after round 3 repairs:

`bash scripts/quality_gate.sh output/chapters/chapter_12.md`

Result: PASS, open=0, allowlisted=0, watch=48.

Verification needed:

Run Positive Prose round 4. If it finds only lower-leverage new line preferences, decide in the synthesis memo rather than continuing a polishing loop.

## Round 4 Follow-Up

Source audit: `output/critiques/claude/chapter_12.positive_prose_round4.md`
Disposition: accepted all four orders; closed without a fifth Claude round to avoid audit churn after line-local repairs.

Additional repairs made:

1. Replaced `read the room from the walls inward` with literal ordered checking of the gate, lamp, and stock shelf.
2. Broke the `Now you have it` / `Now I have it` refrain by cutting Theo's echo and keeping him writing craft notes instead.
3. Thinned June's exit: replaced the easel/legislate joke with a functional `Seven?` / `Seven.` exchange; kept the water line because it is prop-anchored.
4. Rewrote the post-exit paragraph without `lamplight` posing or `both halves of the evening`; used the literal desk objects and the unused glass of water.

Mechanical check after round 4 repairs:

`bash scripts/quality_gate.sh output/chapters/chapter_12.md`

Result: PASS, open=0, allowlisted=0, watch=51.

Closure:

Positive Prose findings are repaired in the chapter text. Round 4 remains the canonical Claude audit with this repair memo as disposition; no further Positive Prose round is planned unless a later structural change reopens the chapter.
