# Self-Revision Checklists - Draft 0

id: self_revision_checklists | owner: codex | tier: book
date: 2026-07-05

## Structural Questions

S1: YES - protagonist objective explicit early enough. Evidence: Ch01 gives June's exit/stay pressure ("My lease ends December fifteenth") and the class access choice ("Don't fix it"). Theo's objective emerges through his fix-it role and hidden obligation in Ch01-Ch02.

S2: YES - inciting disruption alters the status quo. Evidence: strangers relay "The last spot. You two," and June writes `June Park` into the blank. She is no longer only leaving.

S3: YES - each major section escalates cost, pressure, or complexity. Evidence side by side:
- early: Ch03 `"That's us"` socializes the lie.
- turn 1: Ch07 memory portrait puts private attention on the rack.
- midpoint: Ch13 "Each pair will make one joint piece" plus the public cover kiss.
- rupture: Ch17 `"Odile's my aunt"` and no-chair refusal.
- late: Ch20 "I said no at 10:52" makes staying self-owned before confession.
- coda: Ch24 `Park, J. - Brennan, T. Last slot` proves Odile's design.

S4: YES - midpoint and late-book turns are qualitatively different from earlier problems. Evidence: midpoint is public intimacy/art deadline; late turn is hidden-family/institutional asymmetry; final turn is Odile's night-one manipulation. These are not repeats of the same exposure problem.

S5: YES - every POV chapter justifies its existence. Weakest candidates checked: Ch09, Ch11, Ch18. They pass because Ch09 plants material alternatives, Ch11 turns categories into access/forms, and Ch18 turns absence into work. Ch09 quote: "Neither one was nothing." Ch11 quote: PARK / BRENNAN cubby pressure. Ch18 quote: "This was the room as one person left it."

S6: YES - ending caused by character choice rather than random rescue. Evidence: June declines Tasker in Ch20 before confession; Theo does not rescue in Ch23-Ch24; June takes the ledger page and leaves with her own jar/debt. Ch24 quote: "I'm not carrying anything."

S7: YES - final state answers the central dramatic question. The central question is whether the false class category can produce real art/love/belonging without stealing June's agency. Ch24 answers through partial public truth, private Odile proof, consent-governed portrait, and self-owned material future. Evidence: "You didn't start this together"; "It wasn't yours to run"; "She had a long cold way to go and eight hundred dollars due Thursday, and she went."

## Line-Edit Questions

Samples: Ch01, Ch08, Ch13, Ch17, Ch22, Ch24, plus motif audit findings.

L1: YES - narration is in correct POV distance. Weakest passing case checked: Ch24 Odile proof could drift into judgment, but stays in June's perception: "June looked at the dry ink until it was only ink again."

L2: YES - verbs are specific and active where pressure is high. Evidence: Ch17 "held it out under the door light"; Ch24 "tore the page clean out along the perforation."

L3: YES - filler dialogue is trimmed. Evidence: Dialogue Doctor coverage is complete; Ch22 keeps the apology in functional lines rather than repartee: "I wrote six things. I'm not going to read them."

L4: YES - description arises from focal consciousness. Evidence: June sees value/edge in Ch01/23; Theo sees logistics/forms in Ch21/23.

L5: YES, with watch - line-by-line micro-tension exists in quiet passages. Evidence: Ch20 job math and Ch23 joint painting have quiet procedural tension. Watch: motif audit found late hand-density that can soften micro-tension through repeated body nouns.

L6: YES - exposition paragraphs generally placed where they do not stall momentum. Weakest passing case: Ch15 Tasker terms are dense, but they land inside the live decision station and are later paid by Ch20/22.

## Self-Editing-Failures Sweep

- overexplaining motivation already dramatized: NOT-FOUND as a structural pattern. Candidate checked: Ch24 Odile reveal; current prose states the wrong plainly but does not absolve or lecture beyond June's action.
- front-loading worldbuilding: NOT-FOUND. Art/class mechanics arrive with assignments and objects.
- scenes with no turn: NOT-FOUND. Reverse outline found no NO-CHANGE chapters.
- confusing more words with more depth: FOUND as a risk in the late coda only, not a proven structural failure. Ch24 pays many threads in one chapter; if cold readers skim, expansion should add consequence space rather than more explanation.
- polishing grammar before fixing causality: NOT-FOUND in current process; structural/book audits are running before line/motif repairs.

## Verdict

CHECKLISTS-PASS, with two queued watches:

1. Do not line-edit motif issues until Claude cold read and macro diagnostics decide whether expansion/restructure is needed.
2. If cold readers find Ch24 crowded, treat it as a scene/proportion issue, not a sentence-polish problem.
