# Dialogue Doctor - Chapter 20

Target: `output/chapters/chapter_20.md`
Manifest coverage: scenes 02 (lines 24-59), 03 (62-93), 04 (96-145) required. Scene 01 has no dialogue; scene 05 has one quoted utterance plus documentary text messages — both below threshold per manifest, not audited.
Mechanical pre-check: zero hits for `load-bearing` family, "a beat," smirk/chuckle, "follow your heart," "something shifted," air-change, breath-catching; zero uncontracted casual-dialogue forms inside quotes (the lone full-form candidates — "This is a two-minute visit," "It is," June said — are uncontractable in English).

## SCENE 02 (June's apartment — Ruth/Sam dish-and-box visit):

- 1 VOICE CONVERGENCE: CLEAN — read with attributions covered across Ruth/Sam/June; strongest counter-candidate: the paired closing offers "We have a car." (Ruth) / "And a hand truck if you need it." (Sam) — one beat of identical clipped-offer rhythm. Survives: it is a two-line duet whose sameness is the scene's content (identical care, no advice), and the lexicons diverge everywhere else — Sam speaks in object-freight ("What's the freight?", knees, hand truck), Ruth in framed self-accounting ("Some of it was. Some of it was easier for me.").
- 2 MONOTONE Q/A: CLEAN — checked for matched-length volleys; the scene has one real question ("What's the freight?") answered with an inventory, and line lengths swing from June's four-sentence catalog instruction down to Ruth's "All right." Strongest counter-candidate: the closing three-beat (car / hand truck / "Noted") — a cadence at exit, not a sustained pattern.
- 3 MISSING INTERIORITY: CLEAN — focalizer present at every turn: "June heard herself and kept going anyway, plainly, because there was no version of the sentence that got easier"; the dish-flaw digression (the pooled-black cobalt "was the best part of the dish, and Mara knew it") is June's mind doing the deciding the dialogue then reports ("Actually, no. Tell Mara I'm bringing the dish myself Tuesday.").
- 4 QUESTIONS-AS-STATEMENTS: CLEAN — all questions are functional ("What's the freight?", "could you leave them with Sonia?"); Ruth's positions arrive as owned declaratives ("I want to say one thing."), not portent-questions. No counter-candidate stronger than the Sonia request, which is a literal logistics ask.
- 5 FAKE-MCCARTHY MINIMALISM: CLEAN — short lines carry attribution and are earned by the double-parked clock; strongest counter-candidate: '"All right," Ruth said.' — two words, but tagged, and the flatness is Ruth's card behavior (withholds her own conclusion), not performed starkness.
- 6 JARGON-TRADING: CLEAN — the only candidate term, "freight," is answered in the next line ("Catalogs. Eight."); no world-terms exchanged unweighed.
- 7 ATTRIBUTION OPACITY: CLEAN — three speakers, tags or action beats every one-to-two lines; Sam's they/them pronoun is anchored by box actions ("They picked the box up properly this time, knees"). Covered-attribution reread loses no line.
- FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN — strongest counter-candidates: "I kept them to myself and called it manners." — quotable, but speakable, and it is Ruth's single editorial-sharp line (card cap 1/1, now spent for this appearance; nothing else in the scene competes: "We came for the dish." and "We have a car." are five-word plain offers whose deflection is visible as care). Calibration note: "What's the freight?" spends the one permitted varied callback of the retired Ch11 cargo family (tics.md) — legal once, now spent; no further freight/cargo shapes from Sam.
- INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — tested both directions: mind present (above), and interiority reacts rather than re-explaining lines — "June watched her read it and watched her decline to read it out loud" is a reaction to Ruth's restraint about the evidence-table, not a caption of any utterance (checked against the zero-tolerance diagnosis rule: no speech is characterized anywhere in the scene; "kept going anyway, plainly" describes June's own act of continuing, and no sentence is rated careful/rehearsed/sharp).
- Special check (care without advice): PASS — Ruth names only the cost of her own silence ("I kept them to myself and called it manners. ... Some of it was easier for me.") and both refusals-to-advise are material offers ("We have a car."), with June's boundary stated and honored ("I'm not asking for an opinion. I want to be clear that I'm not asking.").

## SCENE 03 (Asha call, 4:05, freight dock):

- 1 VOICE CONVERGENCE: CLEAN, narrowly — with attributions covered, the consent exchange narrows the rhythmic gap: "That's tomorrow's phone call" (June) and "That's not me being polite" (Asha) share one dry-corrective frame, and June's "Not a favor. A clause." is Asha-grade clipped. Survives on stance and lexicon: Asha's field is freight-material (gate, pallet jack, deposit, W-9, net-45, "the radiator is decorative"), June's is self-implication ("It was both this morning. I'm fixing that."), and the cover-test never loses who is offering versus who is asking. The margin is thin — the next Asha scene must not inherit June's confession rhythm.
- 2 MONOTONE Q/A: CLEAN — shapes vary hard: imperative ("Say the studio clause again."), one-word assent ("Yes."), a ninety-word spec dump, and a question answered with a bare number ("$2,643 and whatever paid crating I can get in December."). No matched volley run.
- 3 MISSING INTERIORITY: CLEAN — thin by design for a held-door call, but present exactly at the pivot: "June looked at the left page of the notebook, at GOOD in her own handwriting" is what converts Asha's warning into the admission that follows. Post-call, the joke-entry ("FEB = coat") registers what the call did and didn't solve.
- 4 QUESTIONS-AS-STATEMENTS: CLEAN — strongest counter-candidate: "Who writes that?" self-answered ("Nia Torres, apparently.") — rhetorical, but astonishment-true and immediately grounded in evidence ("I've seen her hang at the co-op."). Asha's real questions ("Why aren't you taking it?", "can you get from here to March?") want answers and get them.
- 5 FAKE-MCCARTHY MINIMALISM: CLEAN — clipped lines are earned by Asha literally holding a door; the freight-noise beats (gate down, pallet jack, off-phone shout) mark turns without stripped-attribution posing.
- 6 JARGON-TRADING: CLEAN — special-check target, verified term by term: "net-45" is translated in the same breath ("you'll see money in March"); Dana's terms arrive as weighable numbers ("first month plus one month deposit, $980 all in with the wall, by December 10"); the one unglossed term (W-9) weighs as a dated paperwork deadline, which is all the reader needs. A cold reader can answer Asha's own question — "can you get from here to March?" — using only the scene's numbers. Not a brochure: the dump ends in a question June must answer with her bank balance.
- 7 ATTRIBUTION OPACITY: CLEAN — two-speaker call; "Okay" opens three different lines but each is anchored by tag or content ("Okay. Second thing?" / '"Okay." Asha was back in load-in mode.' / '"Okay," June said').
- FAKE-SHARP: FAIL — fake-sharp (quotable-not-speakable) — "That's tomorrow's phone call," June said. "Today's question is whether you want in the sentence." (June to Asha, deflecting "Why aren't you taking it?") — the second sentence is a written figure: the recommendation compressed to "the sentence" as an object, a meta-language conceit June's card does not license (she compresses into visual/craft nouns, not language-about-language — "sentence" is Ruth's card lexicon). It lands cleanly at the exact moment June is dodging and should arrive with friction (rule 8); the legitimate deflection is already fully carried by "That's tomorrow's phone call." Cut-list bullet: lines that sound quotable but not speakable.
  Survived counter-candidates, shown: "Send my name because I'm qualified. If you're trying to feel less bad, don't." — blunt, speakable, the prompt-required warning, card-true; "It was both this morning. I'm fixing that." — protected direct register (plain-speech floor); "Talk fast, I'm holding a door with my whole body." — vivid but work-context literal.
- INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — no double-explaining: the GOOD-handwriting look orients the admission instead of restating it, and the scene closes on the notebook action, not a gloss of the call.
- Special check (Asha distinct from Nia and June): PASS here — Asha runs blunt imperatives and fragments against Nia's because-rider clauses in scene 04; distinction from June holds narrowly (see mode 1).

## SCENE 04 (Friday morning + Nia refusal call, 10:40):

- 1 VOICE CONVERGENCE: CLEAN — cover-test: Nia's lines carry schedule freight and because-riders ("because I ran the math with you three weeks ago," "because I'm in Pittsburgh all next week," "I have payroll at eleven."); June's carry craft nouns and self-implication ("Trueing the bed.", "I know what I do when nothing forces me."). Strongest counter-candidate: the cross-speaker "itemize" echo (June: "I itemize and I'm fast." → Nia: "I know her invoices. She itemizes.") — survives because each use is independently motivated (June pitching freelance terms in Nia's register; Nia citing Asha's actual paperwork), but it is the pair's closest lexical touch; no third instance.
- 2 MONOTONE Q/A: CLEAN — the middle run settles into short-Nia-prompt / long-June-answer ("But." / "That doesn't have to happen," / "That's a worse offer,"), which is asymmetric extraction, not matched-weight volleys, and the pattern breaks twice: at the counter-offer read (June reciting off the page) and at the referral (Nia's longest speech). Checked as the scene's nearest miss.
- 3 MISSING INTERIORITY: CLEAN — the focalizer stays lit through the exchange: "June touched the TASKER page"; "She'd written a longer sentence in the notebook Thursday night and it had died of length"; the receipt turned print-side up mid-call; and the cost registered after hang-up ("The clean answer was gone. If February went badly, it would go badly in her own handwriting.").
- 4 QUESTIONS-AS-STATEMENTS: CLEAN — Nia's prompts are genuine extraction ("Walk me through it," "So tell me the counter, so I know what I lost to.") — she wants information and uses it. Strongest counter-candidate: "You know what I'm going to ask next." — a statement functioning as a prompt; survives as peer shorthand that June immediately cashes into concrete referral facts, not portent.
- 5 FAKE-MCCARTHY MINIMALISM: CLEAN — "Torres." and "But." are single-word but situationally literal (office phone answer; a prompt to continue); tags are regular and the printer/keys beats keep the far room real. No stripped-attribution starkness.
- 6 JARGON-TRADING: CLEAN — special-check target, verified: "the Vandercook" is translated in the next line ("The proof press in the back room."); the counter-offer is dramatized as reading ("June read it off the right page"), every number already established, ending in plain stakes ("February is a blank line in my notebook."); "trueing the bed" stays unglossed but weighs correctly as maintenance labor — which is June's argument. Followability test passed: a cold reader can state what June refused (the W-2 and keys), why (she'd become the person with keys instead of the person painting), what she chose (Kessler/Dana/wall share), and what it costs (February).
- 7 ATTRIBUTION OPACITY: CLEAN — two speakers, strict alternation plus tags; the unattributed "But." is recoverable in one read from position and register.
- FAKE-SHARP: FAIL — fake-sharp (compact-formula callback) — "This no is about me with keys. It isn't about the program." (June to Nia, after turning the receipt over) — the earlier admission "I'd still be the person with keys." is concrete and earned by the itemized slide before it (deadline, sink issue, class roster); this second use re-mints the admission as a slogan ("me with keys" as a noun phrase), quotable-not-speakable, and tips the refusal toward exactly the workshopped thesis the chapter check names. One coinage is a confession; the callback is branding. Cut-list bullets: exchanges bent to deliver a compact formula; quotable-not-speakable.
  Survived counter-candidates, shown: "I ran the math with you three weeks ago and I win the math." / "You win the math." — adjudicated per the tic audit's open order (tic 10: "preserve only if it remains speakable"): PRESERVED — Nia's flex is card-licensed money-bluntness and June's echo is a real spoken concession move (conceding in the other party's terms); integration already cut the raw draft's extended "You win it..." run, and no third "math" beat exists. "In five years I'd be good at that job and painting would be the thing I say I'm getting back to." — quotable-shaped but speakable with natural friction ("the thing I say I'm getting back to"), and it is the refusal's protected direct beat (plain-speech floor). Narration maxim noted, not flagged: "You don't measure a room you're not going to work in." — interiority, object-bound, converts immediately to action (draft deleted); outside dialogue scope, left to Positive Prose.
- INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — both directions: mind present (mode 3), and the pre-call test paragraph orients without pre-empting — the 2 a.m./daylight proof covers Theo-independence, while the call itself adds the keys argument the narration never stated, so nothing is explained twice.
- Special checks: Nia never advises past her brief ("So tell me the counter, so I know what I lost to." is professional accounting, not counsel; no "follow your heart," no romanticized poverty); Nia distinct from Asha (full-clause deadline speech vs. Asha's fragments); no therapy-speak; no dialogue diagnosis in dialogue or narration (closest narration, "it had died of length," characterizes June's own discarded notebook draft as a craft object, not anyone's spoken delivery — declined under the rule's scope, noted for the record).

## REVISION ORDERS:

1. (Scene 03, FAKE-SHARP) Replace: "That's tomorrow's phone call," June said. "Today's question is whether you want in the sentence." Keep the two-part deflection of Asha's "Why aren't you taking it?" — first sentence stands unchanged. Rewrite the second sentence concrete and on-card: June compresses into material nouns, never meta-language, and "sentence" belongs to Ruth's lexicon. Direction: "That's tomorrow's phone call. Today I need a yes or no on sending your name." Asha's reply "Yes. Send it." must stand unchanged; do not add friction to Asha's side.
2. (Scene 04, FAKE-SHARP) Rewrite: "This no is about me with keys. It isn't about the program." Keep the surrounding action (receipt turned print-side up) and the freelance-install offer that follows. Remove the "me with keys" coinage callback entirely — the keys admission already landed at "I'd still be the person with keys." and may not be re-minted. Direction per June's card (plain self-implication a tired person can say on a phone after the argument is already made): e.g., "The no is mine. It isn't about the program." or "That's me, not the program." No new figure, no noun-phrase compression of the refusal.

Per spec, findings are BLOCKING and route to opposing-model rewrite; self-repair by the drafting lane is not an accepted resolution.

OVERALL: BLOCKING (2 findings)
