Audit written to `output/critiques/claude/chapter_20.dialogue_doctor.md`. The completed document follows.

# Dialogue Doctor - Chapter 20

id: dialogue_doctor | owner: claude | tier: core
target: `output/chapters/chapter_20.md`
scenes audited (per `output/critiques/codex/dialogue_scene_manifest.md`): 02 (lines 24-59, June's apartment, Ruth/Sam), 03 (lines 62-93, phone with Asha), 04 (lines 96-145, Friday morning + phone with Nia). Scenes 01 and 05 not required (0 and 1 dialogue lines).
exclusions applied: none — all three required scenes are standard spoken dialogue; the reading guide declares no non-standard-form exclusions for them. Scene 02 is partly an ordinary-talk errand visit; per the calibration rule, its circling and flat functional lines were not sharpened into findings.
calibration honored: `output/tics.md` Ch19 row (care must stay uncomfortable/embodied; no inherited ledger figures), `chapter_20.claude_tic_audit.md` (tic 10 deferred the "win the math" construction to this audit), Ch20 prompt anti-tics (no therapy-speak, no advice, no "follow your heart," no dialogue diagnosis).

## SCENE 02 / June's apartment, Thursday 10:40 — Ruth & Sam (lines 24-59)

1. Voice convergence: CLEAN — read with attributions covered; Ruth carries distinction-making complete sentences ("This is a two-minute visit unless you'd like it to be longer"), Sam carries object/space lines ("What's the freight?"; moves the chair six inches), June compresses and deflects at herself ("I'd offer coffee but I'd be lying about the milk"); strongest counter-candidate: "We have a car." / "And a hand truck if you need it." — Ruth and Sam briefly share one clipped-logistics rhythm, but Ruth's half is flat where Sam's is additive-practical, each re-attributes blind, and the pairing is the scene's engineered move: answering forbidden advice with freight terms.
2. Monotone Q/A rhythm: CLEAN — mapped exchange weights: June's eight-line catalog request against Ruth's two-word "All right."; Ruth's three-sentence confession against June's broken "The class is--"; the scene's one question ("What's the freight?") is answered with a list, not a counter-question; strongest counter-candidate: the closing run ("I'm not asking" → "We have a car." → "And a hand truck if you need it." → "Noted.") — four short beats, but they descend in weight and end on a button, not a rally.
3. Missing interiority: CLEAN — June's mind stays on through the exchange: she hears her own request get harder ("there was no version of the sentence that got easier"), digresses into the dish's pooled-cobalt flaw mid-decision, tracks Ruth reading the table "and watched her decline to read it out loud"; strongest counter-candidate: the "We have a car" beat draws no June reaction until "Noted" — survives because "Both of you--thank you. For the box." registers exactly what was and wasn't offered.
4. Questions-as-statements: CLEAN — Ruth, whose card default is clean questions, asks none here; that is the scene's design (care without extracting the story), and her positions arrive as owned statements ("Some of it was easier for me"), not portent-questions; strongest counter-candidate: "What's the freight?" — survives by being literal and getting a literal answer.
5. Fake-McCarthy minimalism: CLEAN — attribution and blocking persist around every clipped line; strongest counter-candidate: Ruth's "All right." — stripped, but her card licenses withheld conclusions and the next paragraph immediately re-anchors bodies (Sam lifting with knees, chair moved six inches to clear the door swing).
6. Jargon-trading: CLEAN — scene vocabulary is household freight; strongest counter-candidate: "Sonia" arrives unglossed — survives on prior-chapter context plus the in-line role (the person to leave the box with if Theo is there), and June translates the stakes herself ("You don't have to say anything except that they're from me").
7. Attribution opacity: CLEAN — read with tags covered; all three resolve by register; strongest counter-candidate: "They picked the box up properly this time" — Sam's pronoun could read for one beat as both visitors; "Ruth had not moved from the edge of the kitchen" closes the ambiguity in the next sentence, and no spoken line is ever orphaned.
FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN — ran the full cut-list; Ruth's one sharp editorial line ("This fall I noticed things. I kept them to myself and called it manners.") sits inside her one-per-appearance cap and inside her card's precise-distinction quirk (same shape as her card sample "I didn't ask what you are. I asked what you promised."); strongest counter-candidate: the tandem "We have a car." / "And a hand truck if you need it." — a two-speaker cap that flirts with sitcom rhythm; it survives because both objects are literally present (double-parked car, box in Sam's arms), the offer is executable, and the exchange is followable as text (June forbade opinion; they offered transport). It is at the ceiling: another capped couple-volley from this pair in a later chapter should fail on sight.
INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — rule 9 tested both directions: mind present (see mode 3) and reacting rather than explaining twice — "It came out before she'd decided to say it" shows the blurt without restating the line's content, and the scene ends on floor-space noticed, not a gloss of what the visit meant; counter-candidate for the explaining direction: "watched her decline to read it out loud" — survives as June tracking Ruth's behavior toward the objects on the table, not a caption of anyone's language.

REVISION ORDERS: none.

## SCENE 03 / phone with Asha, Thursday 4:05 (lines 62-93)

1. Voice convergence: CLEAN — Asha and June both talk rates, but covered-attribution reading separates them: Asha's lines carry the freight floor with her ("I'm holding a door with my whole body," "the radiator is decorative. Wear the coat inside until February"), June's are procedural and self-implicating ("First one's a question and it's yours to say no to," "It was both this morning. I'm fixing that."); strongest counter-candidate: Asha's doubled "is real" ("Ninety days to benefits is real" / "Forty-nine five and written access is real") — a within-speaker tic two exchanges apart; same speaker, so repetition rather than convergence, logged here so the editor lane knows it was seen.
2. Monotone Q/A rhythm: CLEAN — exchange lengths swing from one word ("Yes,") to Asha's nine-clause Dana/Kessler rundown; the freight interruptions (gate down, pallet jack, off-phone shout) break any developing meter; strongest counter-candidate: the declared "Two things" armature — survives because June names the structure aloud as structure, which is her being exact under pressure, and the two halves are wildly asymmetric in weight.
3. Missing interiority: CLEAN — checked the highest-risk stretch, Asha's logistics block, where June is silent for a full paragraph: the frame holds because June re-enters with the balance figure ("$2,643 and whatever paid crating I can get in December") and the exchange's cost lands immediately after in her own handwriting ("FEB = coat... a joke where the answer went"); the scene also contains the chapter's best rule-9 moment — Asha's warning lands and "June looked at the left page of the notebook, at GOOD in her own handwriting" — interiority reacting to the exchange, not explaining it; strongest counter-candidate: that silent spec paragraph — survives narrowly; one more uninterrupted terms-block in this chapter would have tipped it.
4. Questions-as-statements: CLEAN — Asha's questions do question-work: "Why aren't you taking it?" is asked and defended as genuine in the same breath ("That's not me being polite"), and "can you get from here to March?" is the scene's real interrogation and gets a numeric answer; strongest counter-candidate: "Who writes that?" — self-answered ("Nia Torres, apparently"), but it is spoken astonishment at a clause, not manufactured portent.
5. Fake-McCarthy minimalism: CLEAN — clipped lines are load-in clipped, with the phone-noise world attributed around them; strongest counter-candidate: "and Asha hung up before the word was finished" — an abrupt-cut ending, earned by the shouted name off-phone one line earlier.
6. Jargon-trading: CLEAN — every trade term converts to consequence in the same breath: net-45 becomes "you'll see money in March," the deposit becomes "$980 all in with the wall, by December 10," the W-9 becomes a date and a body at 8 a.m.; strongest counter-candidate: "net-45" — the one term a cold reader cannot parse alone; survives because Asha translates it into March-rent reality both times it appears.
7. Attribution opacity: CLEAN — two voices, distinct registers, tags at every topic turn; the freight beats double as attribution; strongest counter-candidate: the untagged "Okay. Second thing?" — resolves instantly because only Asha is running the checklist.
FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN — cut-list run in full; the mandated warning ("Send my name because I'm qualified. If you're trying to feel less bad, don't.") arrives undressed, per her card's "practical warnings without dressing them up," and June's answer is a plain admission, not a comeback ("It was both this morning. I'm fixing that."); strongest counter-candidate: "Not a favor. A clause." — a quotable fragment-stamp in June's mouth; it survives because it answers Asha's literal request to repeat the clause, distinction-by-fragment is June's documented compression under exposure, and the Ch20 tic audit already licensed it as plain distinction. Watch: June reuses the favor-negation shape in scene 04 ("Not as a favor to me"); a third instance downstream should fail on sight.
INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — both directions tested: presence ("this part she knew without notes," the GOOD glance) and no double-explaining — the post-call notebook entry converts the call into dates, and the one gloss ("It was a joke where the answer went, which was at least her own handwriting") reads the object, not the conversation.

REVISION ORDERS: none.

## SCENE 04 / Friday morning + phone with Nia, 10:40 (lines 96-145)

1. Voice convergence: CLEAN, narrowly — covered attributions: Nia's lines run entirely in program/deadline/math tokens ("Walk me through it," "That's a worse offer," "I have payroll at eleven"), June's keep sliding to craft nouns and self-knowledge ("Trueing the bed," "I'd still be the person with keys"); every line re-attributes blind; strongest counter-candidate is a cluster: June's "I itemize and I'm fast" returns in Nia's mouth two lines later ("She itemizes"), June's scene-02 "Noted" recurs as Nia's "Noted," and the "math" coinage crosses speakers at the top of the call (failed below under FAKE-SHARP). Each survives alone — "itemize" is the network's shared professional value and that recognition is the point of the referral; "Noted" is generic — but the scene is one echo away from a duet effect; the rewrite order below removes the worst of the three.
2. Monotone Q/A rhythm: CLEAN — the call's middle run alternates short Nia counters with medium June explanations; checked against the volley definition and the weights are deliberately unequal — the refuser carries the explanation burden, the refused party probes, which is negotiation-true; strongest counter-candidate: the four-cycle regularity ("The after-hours access is in writing." → reason; "That doesn't have to happen." → reason) — survives because Nia's counters escalate in kind (fact, possibility, concession-request) rather than repeating one shape, and the run breaks when she flips to "So tell me the counter, so I know what I lost to."
3. Missing interiority: CLEAN — June's mind works the whole call through objects: touching the TASKER page mid-concession, turning the receipt print-side up as she says "The no is mine," the printer "doing its printer thing" inside the pause; strongest counter-candidate: no reaction line between "come see it" and "I will." — survives because the post-call beat collects the cost ("If February went badly, it would go badly in her own handwriting").
4. Questions-as-statements: CLEAN — Nia's imperatives are imperatives ("Walk me through it," "tell me the counter"), openly positional, not questions dressed for portent; strongest counter-candidate: "You know what I'm going to ask next." — a statement performing a question; survives because it is a manager's real shorthand, June answers the unasked question with content, and it pays the card's own sample ("If you say no, send me someone good. I still have a program to keep open.").
5. Fake-McCarthy minimalism: CLEAN — Nia's one-word "But." is stripped, but office noise, key clicks, and tags keep the scene furnished; strongest counter-candidate: "Then she hung up first." — the second abrupt-hangup ending in consecutive scenes (scene 03: "Asha hung up before the word was finished"); each is earned locally, but the pattern is spent — any later phone scene must not end on the other party's cut-off.
6. Jargon-trading: CLEAN — the brochure risk named in the chapter prompt does not land: "The part I keep wanting is the Vandercook" self-glosses in the next sentence ("The proof press in the back room"), and the counter-offer recital converts every term to livable consequence, ending on stakes rather than specs ("February is a blank line in my notebook"); strongest counter-candidate: "Trueing the bed" — unglossed press-craft; survives because its work (maintenance, the pull of keeping rooms usable for others) is legible from the surrounding list, and Ch15 planted the Vandercook.
7. Attribution opacity: CLEAN — two speakers, tagged turns, distinct token sets; "Torres." as pickup is attributed by the dial itself; strongest counter-candidate: the untagged reply "Send you someone good. I did the asking already, yesterday, with her permission." — sits in an unambiguous reply slot directly after Nia's prompt and carries June's syntax.
FAKE-SHARP: FAIL — quote-volley / coinage echo — "Walk me through it, because I ran the math with you three weeks ago and I win the math." / "You win the math," June said. "The job's good, Nia." (Nia, then June; top of the Nia call) — Nia coins a phrase and June adopts it verbatim in the next line, opening the call on a composed two-speaker quotable unit at the exact moment June is delivering a rehearsed no she is afraid of. Cut-list: "lines that sound quotable but not speakable" — the coinage is speakable once; the verbatim hand-back is written-conversation behavior (rule 7: "A conversation where every line lands perfectly is a written conversation"). Rule 8 is the tiebreaker: in doubt between the clean landing and friction, choose friction — and the calibration trail points the same way: the Ch20 tic audit flagged this exact construction in the raw draft (tic 10, "You win the math... You win it...") and deferred it to this audit with "preserve only if it remains speakable." Half of it does; the echo does not. Everything else on the cut-list passed; the hardest survivor was "In five years I'd be good at that job and painting would be the thing I say I'm getting back to" — the chapter's thesis in one sentence, but the polish is diegetic (the rehearsal is on the page: the notebook sentence that "died of length," the daylight re-test, the deleted email), the plain-speech floor mandates the refusal be stated plainly, and the sentence is speakable by a person who has practiced it; it survives on those grounds and would not survive without them. Also checked: Nia's "I know her invoices. She itemizes. That's already more than most references." — a dry landing arriving while Nia is brisk, not at a moment she should be quiet; card-licensed money-specific humor.
INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — both directions: the pre-call section is nearly all interiority-with-objects (the deleted draft email, the ground-test "for holes, for thin patches, for places where wanting had been scumbled over need") and it reacts forward into the call rather than explaining it twice; post-call, "The clean answer was gone" reads consequence, not recap; counter-candidate for the explaining direction: "That was why she'd written it in numbers." — one gloss of her own method; survives because it closes the daylight-test paragraph rather than captioning any exchange.

REVISION ORDERS:
1. FAKE-SHARP — rewrite the opening echo of the Nia call: Nia: "All right. Walk me through it, because I ran the math with you three weeks ago and I win the math." / June: "You win the math. The job's good, Nia. You built it right, the studio clause alone." Keep Nia's line through "three weeks ago" — her math-token candor is card-true, and the "I win the math" coinage may stand or flatten at the rewriter's discretion — but June's concession must not adopt Nia's coinage verbatim. Direction per June's card (compresses when exposed; full forms only when trying not to fall apart) and the chapter's own material: concede the arithmetic in her own idiom, ideally against the scene-01 fact that she ran the numbers four times and the left page won every line (shape, not mandated wording: "You do. I ran it four times."), then continue into "The job's good, Nia. You built it right..." Let the concession arrive one degree rougher — a shorter clause, or her hand on the receipt — not cleaner. Do not compensate by adding any new quotable line anywhere in the call; the target is friction, not sharper polish.

## SPECIAL CH20 CHECKS (from the chapter prompt; evidence shown)

- Ruth/Sam care without advice: PASS — neither tells June what to choose; the only response to "I'm not asking for an opinion. I want to be clear that I'm not asking." is logistics ("We have a car." / "And a hand truck if you need it."), and Ruth's named cost stays her own ("I kept them to myself and called it manners... Some of it was easier for me") without converting into guidance. No wise-NPC drift found.
- Asha / Nia / June distinctness: PASS — token test across scenes 03/04: Asha = load-in floor (gate, pallet jack, "wear the coat inside until February," "ok now the boring parts"); Nia = program office (payroll, Pittsburgh, subject line, "That's a worse offer"); June = craft nouns and self-evidence (Vandercook, trueing, "GOOD in her own handwriting"). Nearest convergence risk is the scene-04 echo cluster, adjudicated under mode 1 and FAKE-SHARP above.
- Nia refusal plain and speakable: PASS with the one FAIL noted — the refusal's core ("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.") is concrete, followable, and speakable; the workshopped residue is confined to the "I win the math" echo, ordered above.
- No dialogue diagnosis / therapy-speak / "follow your heart" / fake-sharp volley: dialogue diagnosis — zero instances found; narration about speech swept too. Nearest miss: "She'd written a longer sentence in the notebook Thursday night and it had died of length" — rates her own written draft, not anyone's spoken language, and functions as rehearsal evidence; not a violation, but the "died of length" shape should not recur. Therapy-speak and "follow your heart": zero. Fake-sharp volley: one FAIL (scene 04).
- Scene 04 job/studio terms followable as dialogue, not brochure: PASS — see scene 04 mode 6; the counter recital ends on "February is a blank line in my notebook," which is stakes, not spec.

OVERALL: BLOCKING (1 finding)

Resolution routing: per the audit contract, the scene-04 revision order routes to the opposing model lane for rewrite; self-repair by the drafting lane is not an accepted resolution.
