# Dialogue Doctor - Chapter 20

id: dialogue_doctor | owner: claude | tier: core
target: `output/chapters/chapter_20.md`
manifest coverage: scenes 02 (lines 24-59), 03 (62-93), 04 (96-145) per `output/critiques/codex/dialogue_scene_manifest.md`. Scenes 01 and 05 are below the dialogue threshold (0 and 1 dialogue lines) and are not covered — declining per manifest, not per judgment.
calibration applied: READING_GUIDE §2 plain-speech floor and zero-tolerance dialogue-diagnosis rule (§2/§6), §5 care moves, §8 followability test; `output/tics.md` Ch19 inheritance rows (no stool/jar jokes, no ledger figures, care must stay uncomfortable — verified absent); `chapter_20.claude_tic_audit.md` tic 10 deferred the over-balanced refusal parallel to "later Dialogue audits" — ruled on below under SCENE 04 FAKE-SHARP; Ch20 prompt anti-tics (no therapy-speak, no "follow your heart", no advice from Ruth/Sam, Ruth one sharp line max).
Each scene block carries the seven failure modes, FAKE-SHARP, INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION, and a SPECIAL-CH20 line for the prompt-mandated checks (no-advice, speaker distinctness, refusal plainness, dialogue diagnosis/therapy-speak, scene-04 term followability).

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SCENE 02 (June's apartment, Ruth/Sam visit, lines 25-59):

1. VOICE CONVERGENCE: CLEAN — read with attributions covered across all three speakers; strongest counter-candidate: the paired offers `"We have a car," Ruth said.` / `"And a hand truck if you need it."` (Sam, lines 51/53) — identical care-move shape back to back, but it survives: Ruth's is a flat fact with the conclusion withheld (her card's stress response), Sam's rides on it with physical-logistics humor (their card: carries what needs carrying), and elsewhere the registers stay far apart ("All right." vs "What's the freight?").
2. MONOTONE Q/A: CLEAN — only one true question in the scene ("What's the freight?"), answered with contents, not a volley; line lengths run from June's multi-clause Sonia instruction (line 33) to Ruth's two-word assent (line 35). Strongest counter-candidate: the closing triplet June/Ruth/Sam (lines 49-53) — three short lines in a row, but the weights differ (declaration, offer, rider), not question/answer.
3. MISSING INTERIORITY: CLEAN — June's mind stays on: the dish-flaw paragraph mid-decision (line 37), "June looked at the receipt so she wouldn't look at Ruth" (line 45), the visible floor after they leave (line 57). Strongest counter-candidate: the four-line run at 49-53 where the only interior clause is "It came out before she'd decided to say it" — survives because that clause registers the involuntary disclosure, which is the beat's whole event.
4. QUESTIONS-AS-STATEMENTS: CLEAN — checked every line for positions dressed as questions; strongest counter-candidate: Ruth's "This is a two-minute visit unless you'd like it to be longer" (line 27) — an offer folded into a statement, but it manufactures an exit, not portent, and June can answer it in plain text (she does).
5. FAKE-MCCARTHY MINIMALISM: CLEAN — attribution and action beats are dense (box test-lift, knees, strap-straightening, chair moved six inches). Strongest counter-candidate: `"All right," Ruth said.` (line 35) — maximally clipped, but earned: June has just pre-empted all explanation, and Ruth's card behavior is withholding her own conclusion, not performed starkness.
6. JARGON-TRADING: CLEAN — no world-terms traded; Sonia, the catalogs, and Odile's ownership are all established objects. Strongest counter-candidate: "What's the freight?" — trucker shorthand, translated instantly by the box in Sam's hands.
7. ATTRIBUTION OPACITY: CLEAN — three speakers, every line within one beat of a name; covered tags and reran: Sam's physical-logistics lines and Ruth's exact clauses stay distinguishable. Strongest counter-candidate: "And a hand truck if you need it" — anchored by "Sam, at the door, hefted the box again."
FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN — ran the cut-list on every exchange. Strongest counter-candidate: `"This fall I noticed things. I kept them to myself and called it manners."` (Ruth, line 43) — "called it manners" is a quotable coin, but it is Ruth's one licensed editorial-sharp line per appearance (style bible cap) and it is immediately deflated by "Some of it was. Some of it was easier for me." — a spoken self-correction that retracts the coin's neatness; that is Rule-8 friction, not a second coin. Second candidate weighed: "We came for the dish." (line 47) — literally true (they did), kindness as logistics, speakable.
INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — interiority reacts to the exchange (choosing the receipt over Ruth's face) rather than explaining it twice. Strongest counter-candidate: "watched her read it and watched her decline to read it out loud" (line 41) — approaches captioning, but its object is the table's evidence, not anyone's sentence, and it orients what June is bracing for (being asked).
SPECIAL-CH20: FAIL — dialogue diagnosis (narration about speech) — `June heard herself and kept going anyway, plainly, because there was no version of the sentence that got easier.` (narration around June's catalog instruction, line 33) — READING_GUIDE §6 is zero tolerance "in any speaker's mouth or in narration about speech"; "plainly" captions her own delivery and "no version of the sentence that got easier" rates the sentence's phrasing instead of showing the difficulty. Compare the two candidates that survive the same rule: "It came out before she'd decided to say it" (line 49; an event of involuntary disclosure, no rating of phrasing) and line 41 (object-reading, not speech). The no-advice check itself PASSES: Ruth and Sam offer a car, a hand truck, and one admission of their own silence's cost; neither tells June what to choose, and "You can leave that part out" is permission, not counsel.

REVISION ORDERS:
1. Line 33: cut the speech-caption clause "June heard herself and kept going anyway, plainly, because there was no version of the sentence that got easier." Replace with action or object per June's card (compresses when exposed, gets physically busy): e.g., she keeps her eyes on the box or squares it to the door while she delivers the Sonia instructions in one uninterrupted pass — the instruction's length and completeness already show she rehearsed it. No word about how the sentence sounds or what saying it costs in phrasing terms; the cost must live in what her hands and eyes do. (READING_GUIDE §2/§6 zero-tolerance dialogue diagnosis.)

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SCENE 03 (Asha phone call, lines 63-93):

1. VOICE CONVERGENCE: CLEAN — the real risk is shared rate-speak between two install-world peers; covered tags and reran. Strongest counter-candidate: June's `"Not a favor. A clause."` (line 71) wearing Asha's clip — survives because June's card compresses when exposed, the distinction is the offer letter's material content, and Asha's surrounding lines carry jokes embedded in logistics that June never attempts ("the radiator is decorative," "holding a door with my whole body"). June delivers specs; Asha probes and rules.
2. MONOTONE Q/A: CLEAN — length variance is wide: Asha's one-line probes against June's terms block (line 67), then the inversion — Asha's long logistics block (line 85) against June's one-number answer ("$2,643 and whatever paid crating I can get in December"). Strongest counter-candidate: the "Say the studio clause again." / clause / "Who writes that?" run (lines 69-73) — brief volley, but the weights shift from probe to spec to self-answered surprise.
3. MISSING INTERIORITY: CLEAN — "because this part she knew without notes" (line 67); the glance at GOOD in her own handwriting under Asha's warning (line 79). Strongest counter-candidate: the logistics block at line 85 lands with no June reaction inside it — survives because the block is instructions June explicitly asked for ("Tell me what has to happen and when") and her reaction arrives as the notebook entry at line 93, delayed to the object, which is her card's rhythm.
4. QUESTIONS-AS-STATEMENTS: CLEAN — "Who writes that?" (line 73) is self-answered in the next breath ("Nia Torres, apparently") — spoken surprise, not manufactured portent; "can you get from here to March?" is a genuine question answered with a number. No position wears a question mark.
5. FAKE-MCCARTHY MINIMALISM: CLEAN — clipped lines are gate-down freight-dock phone conditions, world-true, with noise beats as attribution. Strongest counter-candidate: `"Yes," Asha said. "Send it."` — starkness earned by June's explicit request for a yes or no one line earlier.
6. JARGON-TRADING: CLEAN — every term is consequence-tagged in the same breath: "$980 all in with the wall, by December 10," "W-9 by the 15th," "invoice the 25th, net-45, you'll see money in March." Strongest counter-candidate: "net-45" — survives because the line translates itself into March, and scene 01's notebook already priced it.
7. ATTRIBUTION OPACITY: CLEAN — two speakers, strict alternation, freight-noise beats anchor Asha. Strongest counter-candidate: `"Okay. Second thing?"` (line 81) untagged — unambiguous because it answers June's stated two-item agenda.
FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN — ran the cut-list. Strongest counter-candidate: `"Corners like a surgeon."` (line 73) — the scene's most quotable object; survives narrowly as installer shop-shorthand about hanging precision, same dry compression as her card sample "Not pretty. Cheap enough to forgive," delivered mid-load-in as work-gossip, and Asha does not volley — the next line drops back to benefits math. Second candidate weighed: "Send my name because I'm qualified. If you're trying to feel less bad, don't." (line 77) — blunt, speakable, and the chapter card's required warning; not a zinger arriving where she should be quiet.
INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — the call is fast but June's lived relationship to the information is present at each hinge (knew without notes; GOOD glance; the post-call "FEB = coat" joke as reaction-through-object). Not over-stripped, not double-explained.
SPECIAL-CH20: CLEAN — Asha distinct from Nia and from June: her practicality is bodily-survival ("Wear the coat inside until February," "the radiator is decorative") against Nia's calendar-managerial register in scene 04; no dialogue diagnosis (checked "That's not me being polite" — clarifies the intent of her own question, rates no one's phrasing); no therapy-speak; "Take the crating if you get it" is trade logistics about money already decided, not counsel on the Tasker choice, which she explicitly leaves parked ("That's tomorrow's phone call" is accepted without pushing).

REVISION ORDERS: none.

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SCENE 04 (Friday morning and the Nia call, lines 97-145):

1. VOICE CONVERGENCE: CLEAN — covered tags: Nia manages the call's agenda ("Walk me through it," "Noted," "So tell me the counter, so I know what I lost to," Pittsburgh/payroll exits) while June carries want-language and paint nouns (Vandercook, trueing the bed, the wall). Strongest counter-candidate: the counter-offer recitation (line 129), where June briefly sounds like Nia's money register — survives because she is reading her own notebook page aloud, and Nia's verdict "That's a worse offer" answers in scoring language June never uses.
2. MONOTONE Q/A: CLEAN — the middle rounds risk a prompt/paragraph metronome (Nia short — "But." / "The after-hours access is in writing." / "That doesn't have to happen." — June long, four rounds). Strongest counter-candidate: that middle run — it survives, narrowly, because the last third breaks the pattern (Nia takes the longer turns: invoices, Pittsburgh, "come see it," payroll) and because the short lines carry unequal weight (one-word prompt, contract fact, protest). Revision order 2 below will roughen this stretch anyway; the rewriter should not restore the metronome.
3. MISSING INTERIORITY: CLEAN — June's mind is present at the hinges: "June touched the TASKER page" (line 121), the receipt turned print-side up at "The no is mine" (line 133), the printer registered in the pause (line 111). Interiority reacts through objects rather than restating the lines.
4. QUESTIONS-AS-STATEMENTS: CLEAN — strongest counter-candidate: "You know what I'm going to ask next." (Nia, line 135) — a statement doing a question's work, but it is professional shorthand between peers who both know her card line ("send me someone good"), and June answers it instantly; no portent is left hanging.
5. FAKE-MCCARTHY MINIMALISM: CLEAN — "Torres." as a pickup (line 107) is world-true office answering, not performed starkness; tags and office-noise beats present throughout. Strongest counter-candidate: `"But."` (line 115) — one word, unattributed, but it is a genuine conversational prompt and the scene has earned the compression (June has just praised the job for two sentences while calling to refuse it).
6. JARGON-TRADING: CLEAN — this is the special-check scene and I pressed it: "The proof press in the back room. Trueing the bed. Keeping the room usable." (line 117) — Vandercook is glossed as the proof press in apposition, and "trueing the bed" is graded as upkeep by its neighbors; the term's weight (the seduction of maintenance work) is exactly what June names two lines later ("I'd still be the person with keys"). The counter recitation ties every number to a consequence (March, no real heat, ten feet of wall, blank February line). Followable as dialogue, not brochure. Strongest counter-candidate: "trueing the bed" — survives on the appositive gloss.
7. ATTRIBUTION OPACITY: CLEAN — two speakers, tagged at every turn of pressure; the untagged "But." and "Okay. So tell me the counter..." are unambiguous by function. Covered tags and reran: no drift.
FAKE-SHARP: FAIL — cut-list "exchanges that exist mainly to deliver a compact aphorism" + Rule 7/Rule 8 — `"...I'd say I was painting after hours, and then there'd be a deadline, a sink issue, a class roster. I'd still be the person with keys." / "That doesn't have to happen," Nia said. / "No," June said. "But I know what I do when nothing forces me. In five years I'd be good at that job and painting would be the thing I say I'm getting back to."` (June/Nia, lines 121-125) — two consecutive June speeches open on the same frame ("I know myself in rooms like that" / "I know what I do when nothing forces me") and each closes on a coined summary line. The first coin is earned: "I'd still be the person with keys" arrives out of a concrete list (deadline, sink issue, class roster) and is the book's literal keys. The second speech then restates the already-proven point at thesis altitude — five years, "the thing I say I'm getting back to" — a balanced epigram landing exactly where the Ch20 prompt warned ("the Nia refusal must be plain and speakable, not workshopped thesis") and exactly the over-balanced construction the tic audit (tic 10) deferred to this audit with "preserve only if it remains speakable." It is speakable in isolation; in sequence it makes the refusal a two-coin delivery system, a written conversation per Rule 7. One coin per refusal. Counter-candidates weighed and passed: "I win the math" (line 111, Nia — card-licensed money talk, and June concedes rather than volleying, so no quote volley); "February is a blank line in my notebook" (line 129 — literally true of the notebook's FEB = line).
INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — tested Rule 9 in both directions. The pre-call test paragraph (lines 101-103) and the call do not double-explain: the interiority settles the Theo question (would Ridgewood hold if he never speaks to her again), the call argues the separate vocation question (keys person vs. painter); neither restates the other. In-call interiority is object-borne, not narrator performance. Strongest counter-candidate for over-explanation: "That was why she'd written it in numbers." (line 103) — survives because it closes the interior test, before dialogue, and the call never repeats it.
SPECIAL-CH20: FAIL — dialogue diagnosis (narration about speech) — `She'd written a longer sentence in the notebook Thursday night and it had died of length.` (narration inside June's Vandercook speech, line 117) — READING_GUIDE §6 zero tolerance covers "any instance... in narration about speech"; "died of length" rates a sentence's phrasing, a wit-caption on June's own drafting, perceptiveness performed at the reader. The remaining special checks PASS: no therapy-speak (closest approach, "I know myself in rooms like that," is concrete and immediately cashed out in sink issues and rosters); no "follow your heart" (Nia's pressure is all material: "That doesn't have to happen," "That's a worse offer"); Nia not a strawman (she wins the math on the page and June says so); refusal plainness otherwise holds — see the FAKE-SHARP order for the one breach; terms followable per mode 6.

REVISION ORDERS:
1. Line 117: cut "and it had died of length" — delete the clause or the whole notebook-sentence aside. If a beat is needed before "The proof press in the back room," use the object without rating it: she sees the crossed-out longer entry on the page and says the short version. The narration may show the crossing-out; it may not review the sentence. (READING_GUIDE §2/§6 zero-tolerance dialogue diagnosis.)
2. Lines 121-125: keep the first speech intact through "I'd still be the person with keys." Rewrite June's answer to "That doesn't have to happen" so it does not end on the five-year epigram. Direction per her card (under pressure: shorter syntax, more exact, full forms only when trying not to fall apart): a plain admission that concedes Nia's point while holding the no — fact-shaped, not symmetry-shaped, no future-tense thesis, allowed to arrive with friction (Rule 8: choose the line that lands with friction over the one that lands cleanly). Do not open on "But I know" again; the repeated frame is half the workshopped effect. The exchange's information (nothing external forces her; she refuses anyway) must survive; the aphorism must not. Opposing-model rewrite; do not let the same lane that drafted the coin polish its replacement.

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OVERALL: BLOCKING (3 findings) — scene 02: 1 (dialogue diagnosis, line 33); scene 04: 2 (fake-sharp twin-coin refusal, lines 121-125; dialogue diagnosis, line 117). Scene 03 is clean with counter-candidates shown. Findings route to opposing-model rewrite per audit contract; self-repair by the drafting lane is not an accepted resolution.
