# Positive Prose Audit — Chapter 06 ("Sightlines") — Round 2

Target: `output/chapters/chapter_06.md` | Prior audit: `output/critiques/claude/chapter_06.positive_prose.md` | Comparison base: `output/drafts/claude/chapter_06.round_01.md` | Standard: `premise/READING_GUIDE.md` §2/§6/§8, `output/style_and_voice.md` global rules + voice cards | Mechanical reference: `output/critiques/codex/mechanical/quality_gate_report.md` (chapter 06: 0 open findings, WATCH hits only).

**Scope note.** This is a verification pass against the nine consolidated orders of the prior audit, followed by a full re-run of the four sections on the current integrated text. The three codex repair memos (dialogue, comedy, characters-wrong) describe changes that are all confirmed present in the current text; their "Verification Pending" lines remain open for their own round-2 audits and are not discharged here.

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## Prior-order verification

1. **(Blocking) Replace the "ease of being consulted as a unit" summary with observable inaction; retain the route-card sentence.** — **Executed in letter, not in effect.** The summary sentences are gone and "The route card came back against Theo's shirt." survives as ordered. But the replacement — "He stopped because the question had not been addressed to him alone." — has Theo arrest his own reflex *before* June speaks, with the reason attached in narration. The order's stated purpose was that June's "I can answer that" land as an interruption of something Theo was visibly doing. It now lands in a space he has already vacated. Re-issued as Section 2, Finding 1 (blocking).
2. **(Blocking) Cut Ruth's scene to one sharp line; break or roughen the other three.** — **Two of three executed.** "That's the reflex I'm asking about" is cut; "Make sure it belongs to her" is replaced by the functional "It should be one she can use," followed by "She went inside" — acceptable. But the forms line was not roughened: "The forms I saw point back to your desk. Maybe I missed one. I'd prefer that." is the original "Maybe I'm wrong. I'd prefer to be." with nouns swapped and the finished two-beat concession architecture intact. Re-issued as Section 3, Finding 1 (blocking).
3. **(Blocking) Ground the final clause in the literal descent and empty pocket.** — **Executed.** "He put one foot on the first stair and the next. Halfway down, his thumb found the empty place on his shirt where the route card had been." The motif-caption "followed without a route" is gone; "He had not found the name by the time she passed below street level." carries the ending as ordered.
4. **Cut or concretize "arranged themselves badly at first, and better by degrees."** — **Executed.** The paragraph now opens on Ben backing into the flat files and apologizing to the glassine sleeves.
5. **Replace "carrying nothing and missing nothing" with one observed Luis sightline.** — **Executed, well.** "Luis a step behind her, his eyes on the sandwich board's new angle" — a sightline that also pays off Theo's four-inch move from the opening.
6. **Strip the three certifications from the lithograph paragraph.** — **Executed.** "no supervision needed" and "She was not performing attention" are cut; "forgot the outing entirely" became the observable "The group shifted behind them; she did not turn."
7. **Replace Mara's clip-lights epigram with a hosting-register pretext.** — **Executed.** "I keep losing the middle one when I stand over here, and Luis will not let me blame the lights" is over-explaining, practical, and carries her Luis-translation tic. One residual register defect noted in Section 3, Finding 2.
8. **Replace "before the room caught up with him" with the literal step/hand/sitter sequence.** — **Executed.** "Theo took one step toward the painting. His fingers came out of his pocket. [...] This was not his wall. The sitter with the thermos looked up." — and the characters-wrong repair correctly lets Luis's correction strand him mid-step before he retreats to the route card.
9. **Replace "Her weight shifted toward the work, not away from the room" with a literal staying posture.** — **Executed.** "She set her tote at her feet and stopped checking the door." — the exact non-exit behavior the order specified, and it mirrors Theo taking the door spot two sentences later.

Seven of nine fully executed; orders 1 and 2 are partially executed and re-issued below.

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## 1. Paragraphs portable to another novel

**PORTABLE-PARAGRAPH** — "They broke for coffee after that. Sam did the thing Theo understood only after it was already in motion." — "Did the thing [POV] understood only after it was already in motion" is a stock contemporary-ensemble forward-tease; it could open the coffee-break maneuver in any Beth O'Leary-adjacent group novel unchanged, and the maneuver it teases is fully shown two sentences later (Sam collecting June, the not-whispered "Two blocks. Say it or let it go."). — ORDER: Cut the tease and open on Sam's line; Theo's belatedness, if kept, should be one observable fact (he was still holding the door, he had already turned toward Ruth) rather than a narrated comprehension delay.

Checked and passing. The opening paragraph survives again — nine steps, handrail left side only, the taped door, the radiator scheduling which corner overheats — every detail route-card-specific and cashed later. The arrival paragraph, portable in round 1 via the Luis chiasmus, is now anchored (sandwich board angle, "up out of the F," Mara's black scarf). The strongest remaining candidate is the dispersal sentence "The cohort dissolved at the corner as Mara issued reminders about the weekend cold and Priya steered Ben toward the better entrance over his objections" — "the cohort dissolved" is group-scene stock, but the sentence immediately spends three owned specifics and feeds the Sam-cup beat, so it passes. The Vestibule paragraph ("Theo respected the name for admitting the problem") and the bodega (CORTADO YES between lotto terminal and cat food) are non-portable under the smallness test.

## 2. Pressure summarized rather than inhabited

**SUMMARIZED-PRESSURE** — "Theo had an answer half-built from their emails: no lease, no details, no performance. He stopped because the question had not been addressed to him alone." — The chapter's central beat is still not inhabited: the narration files Theo's stop with its justification pre-attached ("because the question had not been addressed to him alone"), which (a) means June's "I can answer that" interrupts nothing — he has already yielded, so her border-patrol costs her a sentence to no visible resistance — and (b) re-introduces the exact defect the characters-wrong memo repaired elsewhere: Theo catching the reflex before it costs him. The triple "no lease, no details, no performance" also ends on a theme-noun rather than the words he would actually have said. — ORDER (blocking): Give the half-built answer its actual first words in Theo's mouth-opening register (the cover-story content, quotable), carry him to the verge of speech — and let "I can answer that" arrive on top of it. Cut "He stopped because…" entirely; the reason stays unstated. Retain "The route card came back against Theo's shirt."

**SUMMARIZED-PRESSURE** — "They had arranged the two-block walk, and now they got the same flat kindness Theo did." — Narrator explanation of a beat the page already performed: the arrangement was staged on-page ("Two blocks. Say it or let it go.") and "Sam's cup paused halfway" already carries the cost; the sentence is reader-service captioning at managerial altitude. — ORDER: Cut the sentence. If the link needs one more beat, make it physical (the cup completing its arc slowly; Sam looking after Ruth), not explanatory.

Checked and passing. The two pressure peaks that should be inhabited, are: the channels paragraph ("The official channel was him. The unofficial channel was Odile. [...] He checked the pocket with the route card. The gallery keys were in the other one. Both were his pockets.") and the corner inventory ("Theo had the closing times for both galleries, the stair count, the slope of the floor at Vestibule, the kid's name at the desk, and nothing in his pockets that touched Ruth's question. [...] The back was blank."). Both land Ruth's question on literal objects in Theo's own logistical register. I also weighed "Mara assigned them a wall the way she would have assigned it to any settled pair" — a counterfactual gloss, but it is the thesis observation made once, in Theo's comparative register, and the paragraph immediately converts it to observables (the kid deciding against saying anything, the group shifting, June not turning). It passes. The escalating infinitives at the bodega ("to be useful, to anticipate, to stand in the middle of one more route") pass because the route language is by that point literal currency in the chapter and the sentence is immediately spent on a corrective act ("Two. Ask her first.").

## 3. Polished, therapeutic, or aphoristic dialogue

**POLISHED-DIALOGUE** — "The forms I saw point back to your desk. Maybe I missed one. I'd prefer that." — The repair swapped nouns but kept the finished architecture: a declarative verdict plus a balanced two-beat concession, the identical music of the line it replaced ("Maybe I'm wrong. I'd prefer to be.") and of her sanctioned line forty words later ("I saw enough to be worried. Not enough to be right."). That puts the scene at two editorial-sharp lines against the card's hard cap of one per appearance, and gives Ruth two consecutive epigrams in the same concession rhythm — a woman accusing a friend of something she cannot prove should have to assemble at least one of these as she says it. — ORDER (blocking): Keep "I saw enough to be worried. Not enough to be right." as the one sharp line. Rebuild the forms line as assembly, not verdict: have her name the actual paper she saw (the registration sheet, the packet with both names, the slot payment) and let the sentence arrive incomplete or restarted — the conclusion "back to your desk" can be the part she doesn't finish, since Theo's "Yes. I hear it." pattern shows he completes her thoughts already.

**POLISHED-DIALOGUE** — "and Luis will not let me blame the lights." — Minor register defect inside an otherwise correct repair: Mara's card is default-contract, and the uncontracted "will not" in casual hosting speech is exactly the machine-clean texture this audit exists to catch (the gate's `legacy-uncontracted-casual-dialogue` WATCH flags this line). Ruth's full forms are card-licensed ("full forms for careful distinction"); Mara's are not. — ORDER: Contract to "won't." Sweep her other lines in the chapter for the same.

Checked and passing. The plain-speech floor is met: June's "We don't live together," Ruth's core week-five question, Theo's "Two. Ask her first," Priya's "I just don't trust a cheap room when I'm tired" are all direct and followable as text. The strongest counter-candidates considered: Priya's "Your left knee keeps looking for a wall. Stool." — sharp, but it is her card-sanctioned practical-diagnosis-with-humor, body-observational rather than aphoristic, and the repetition of "Stool" is functional insistence, not a capper. June's "Then I get to keep both theories" (replacing the zero-tolerance violation "Good answer.") passes as licensed dryness that rates the print, not Theo's sentence. Ruth's exit "It should be one she can use" passes: it corrects the recipient of Theo's "I'll find one" — a usability requirement stated plainly, no epigram music, and "She went inside" takes the weight as ordered. Ben's "Oh." is followed by speech in the same paragraph, so it does not trip the one-word-reaction-paragraph ban; flagged here for the tics tracker since the guide reserves the earned "Oh." for the confession.

## 4. Figurative language where literal precision would win

**FIGURATIVE-WHERE-LITERAL** — "Each route put him somewhere in the hallway. [...] because he stood in the middle of that road too, further in than anyone on this sidewalk knew." — Three figures stacked in one paragraph (route, hallway, road) and the middle one is unanchored — hallway of what? — when the literal disqualifiers exist for every name tested and the chapter already established the precise version at the bodega corner ("Every one of those routes had him standing in the middle of it."). — ORDER: Give each tested name its one literal disqualifier (Mara would ask him first; Sam reached June through the class he runs; the class email comes from his address) and cut "somewhere in the hallway"; for Odile, the established middle-of-the-route phrasing may carry "that road" if one figure is kept, not three.

Checked and passing. The repaired ending is the strongest counter-candidate and survives: "Halfway down, his thumb found the empty place on his shirt where the route card had been" is literal — the place is empty, the card is in Ben's pocket, the thumb gesture pays off the corner beat at line 135. "Her pace was quicker than the route card would have budgeted for" passes as a factual observation in Theo's planning register, not an installed image. "Theo's evening no longer had a card in it" was re-weighed and stands (mild personification stating a just-witnessed fact). "The gold one isn't gold. It's confident, though" remains June's licensed painter-speak, technically true about gilt.

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**Out-of-scope continuity note (not a prose finding, flagged for the continuity pass):** Ruth has a paper cup with a squared cardboard sleeve during the two-block walk (lines 109–117), but the only on-page coffee source is the bodega they have not yet reached. Inherited from the raw draft; should be resolved when the Ruth scene is touched per the blocking order above.

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## Chapter verdict: LLM-CLEAN-FOUND

Six findings, two blocking. Prior orders 3–9 are confirmed executed; orders 1 and 2 were executed in letter but not effect and are re-issued. Consolidated orders for the rewriter:

1. **(Blocking — re-issue of prior order 1.)** In the overlap beat, cut "He stopped because the question had not been addressed to him alone."; give Theo's half-built answer its actual first words and carry him to the verge of saying them, so June's "I can answer that" interrupts visible behavior. Replace the "no lease, no details, no performance" triple with the quotable cover-story content. Retain "The route card came back against Theo's shirt."
2. **(Blocking — re-issue of prior order 2, narrowed.)** Roughen Ruth's forms line into assembly: name the specific paper she saw, break or restart the sentence, and do not let it share the two-beat concession music of "I saw enough to be worried. Not enough to be right.", which remains her one sharp line.
3. Cut "Sam did the thing Theo understood only after it was already in motion."; open the coffee break on Sam's line.
4. Cut "They had arranged the two-block walk, and now they got the same flat kindness Theo did."; the paused cup carries it.
5. Contract Mara's "will not" to "won't" and sweep her remaining lines for full forms.
6. Replace "Each route put him somewhere in the hallway" with one literal disqualifier per tested name; keep at most one figure (the established middle-of-the-route) for Odile.
