# Positive Prose Audit — Chapter 06 (“Sightlines”)

Target: `output/chapters/chapter_06.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.

**Scope note on pressed passages.** Two pressed quotes are not in the integrated chapter. `Theo had received the ease. June had paid for its boundary.` and Ruth's `I think the room is arranged so you'd never have to find out.` existed in an intermediate revision and were cut by the dialogue repair pass (`chapter_06.dialogue_repair_memo.md`, lines 18 and 20). This audit therefore presses their replacements, which inherited problems from both: the ease/boundary thesis was replaced by a summary at the same managerial altitude (Section 2, Finding 1), and Ruth's aphorism was replaced by a line that is less trope-wise but sits inside a scene still over its sharp-line budget (Section 3, Finding 1). The codex `adversarial_register` and `ending_quality` memos that defend those two lines are auditing a superseded text and should not be cited as cover for the current one.

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## 1. Paragraphs portable to another novel

**PORTABLE-PARAGRAPH** — "The eight of them arranged themselves badly at first, and better by degrees." — This topic sentence is the surviving ghost of the raw draft's "The group spread out the way eight people do in a room built for five," which the integration was ordered to replace with actual room mechanics; the order was executed for the rest of the paragraph but not for its opener, which could begin any group-outing scene in any Beth O'Leary-adjacent ensemble novel unchanged. — ORDER: Cut the topic sentence or make it the first concrete collision; the paragraph's own specifics (Ben apologizing to the glassine sleeves, Luis's two fingers marking the floor) prove the summary unnecessary — open on one of them.

**PORTABLE-PARAGRAPH** — "Mara arrived first, already waving, with Luis a step behind her carrying nothing and missing nothing." — "Carrying nothing and missing nothing" is a portable epigram for the watchful-quiet-spouse type; it would describe the equivalent husband in any contemporary ensemble romance without alteration, and it rates Luis instead of showing him. — ORDER: Replace the antithesis with the one thing Luis actually clocks on arrival (the sandwich board Theo just moved, the basement steps, the storefront sightline) — his card says his care is placement and sightlines; give him a sightline, not a chiasmus.

Checked and passing: the opening paragraph (nine steps, handrail on the left only, blue painter's tape "the good kind," the radiator under the flat files, asking the kid twice) is the strongest counter-candidate for portability and survives — it is non-portable under the reading guide's smallness test because every detail is route-card-specific and pays off later (the card, the kid's nod, the overheating corner). The bodega (espresso machine between lotto terminal and cat food, CORTADO YES) and the frame-shop window (miters, sublet on Clinton, March 1) likewise pass.

## 2. Pressure summarized rather than inhabited

**SUMMARIZED-PRESSURE** — "There it was again, the ease of being consulted as a unit. The route card seemed less necessary for a dangerous instant." — This is the chapter's central beat — Theo enjoying an intimacy he hasn't paid for while June patrols its border — delivered as sociology: "There it was again" files the feeling as a recurring category, "the ease of being consulted as a unit" is abstract-noun summary, and "for a dangerous instant" rates the danger for the reader instead of making the seconds dangerous. The repair pass cut the balanced thesis pair but kept its altitude; the theorem's "again" even survived. The reader should live this inside Ben's open-faced question and the gap before June answers. — ORDER: Replace both sentences with what Theo does during the gap — he does not correct Ben; his mouth starts an answer that assumes the unit; his hand is nowhere near the card pocket — so that June's "I can answer that. We don't live together" lands as an interruption of something he was visibly doing. Keep "The route card came back against Theo's shirt," which already carries the cost physically.

**SUMMARIZED-PRESSURE** — "Mara assigned them a wall the way she would have assigned it to any settled pair, no supervision needed. [...] She was not performing attention. While she studied the print, she forgot the outing entirely." — Three narrator certifications in one paragraph: "no supervision needed" glosses the significance of "Nobody stayed to watch them" (which had already done the work), "not performing attention" captions what the leaning-in showed, and "forgot the outing entirely" is a claim Theo's POV cannot verify — managerial altitude on the chapter's quietest pressure point. — ORDER: Keep "Nobody stayed to watch them" and the leaning-in; cut "no supervision needed" and "She was not performing attention"; convert "forgot the outing entirely" into one more observed datum of absorption (she misses something said to her, or stays past the group's drift), which Theo can actually see.

Strongest counter-candidate considered: "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." This is interiority at the same structural moment of maximum pressure and it passes: the pressure is inhabited through Theo's own logistical register (channels, packets, contact sheets) and lands on literal objects in literal pockets rather than a verdict sentence. The contrast with the two findings above is the standard the rest of the chapter should be held to.

## 3. Polished, therapeutic, or aphoristic dialogue

**POLISHED-DIALOGUE** — "Don't solve it on this block. That's the reflex I'm asking about." / "I think every official form points back to your desk. Maybe I'm wrong. I'd prefer to be." / "I saw enough to be worried. Not enough to be right." / "Make sure it belongs to her." — Four closer-grade lines in one two-block walk. `style_and_voice.md` (global rules) caps Ruth at one editorial-sharp line per appearance; the scene is wall-to-wall quotables, and the repair pass made the exit line *more* polished, not less ("Find her one. Not me." became the aphoristic "Make sure it belongs to her"). "That's the reflex I'm asking about" is the worst of them: Ruth diagnoses Theo's psychology with a therapist's pre-resolved fluency. She is accusing a man she likes of something she admits she cannot prove — the under-pressure version stops after "Don't solve it on this block," or starts the second sentence and abandons it; her card says she "withholds her own conclusion," and this scene keeps handing conclusions over in finished form. — ORDER (blocking): Keep "I saw enough to be worried. Not enough to be right." as her one sharp line (it is card-sanctioned). De-point the other three: cut "That's the reflex I'm asking about" or break it off unfinished; rough up the forms line into something she has to assemble as she says it; replace "Make sure it belongs to her" with a functional exit — "She went inside" can carry the weight the aphorism is currently performing.

**POLISHED-DIALOGUE** — "I can't tell whether I'm having an opinion or enjoying the clip lights." — A high-density quotable in a mouth not licensed for them: the style rules give Odile sole license for memorable-line density, and Mara's register is warm over-hosting, not workshop-cut self-awareness. The line is doing real plot work (the pretext that pairs June and Theo on a wall), which is exactly why it shouldn't arrive gift-wrapped. — ORDER: Keep the wall assignment; replace the epigram with a practical hosting pretext in Mara's own register (she over-explains, she translates, she manages comfort — the excuse should sound like any of those, not like a line saved for the reader).

Checked and passing: Ben's "The rent is less bad, which is how they get you" and "the font needed help" sit inside the Emily-Henry-at-60% allowance and stay anxious and self-mocking rather than pre-resolved; June's "Then I get to keep both theories" and "The gold one isn't gold. It's confident, though" are licensed by her card (craft nouns, dry deflection visible as deflection). The plain-speech floor is met: June's "We don't live together," Ruth's core question, Theo's "Ask her first," Priya's "I just don't trust a cheap room when I'm tired" are all direct and followable as text.

## 4. Figurative language where literal precision would win

**FIGURATIVE-WHERE-LITERAL** — "Theo stepped toward the painting before the room caught up with him." — A blur patched over the banned "before he knew it": rooms do not pursue, and the figure withholds the actual timing the moment depends on. The paragraph already owns the literal correction ("This was not his wall. The sitter with the thermos looked up."). — ORDER: Replace with the observable sequence — how far the step got, where his hand was, the sitter's look as the thing that stops him — and let "This was not his wall" do the catching.

**FIGURATIVE-WHERE-LITERAL** — "Her weight shifted toward the work, not away from the room." — The antithesis is thematic, not physical: "toward the work" has a posture; "not away from the room" has none — it exists only to whisper June's exit-habit at the reader. — ORDER: Substitute the literal stance Theo can see, chosen to be the thing June-the-early-exiter doesn't usually do (she stops tracking the door; she lets the group drift on without checking it; the bag comes off the shoulder) — staying, shown, not glossed.

**FIGURATIVE-WHERE-LITERAL** — "He put one foot on the first stair and the next, and followed without a route." — The final clause stamps the chapter's motif as an abstract closing chord: "followed" has no object (June "passed below street level" two sentences earlier, out of sight), so the verb is theme, not action — and "without a route" reproduces the repair order's own wording ("end with him moving without a route"), an editorial instruction surfaced as prose. The literal facts are already on the table and are better: the card is in Ben's pocket, the name is unfound. — ORDER (blocking): Ground the final clause in those facts — the stairs taken, the chest pocket his thumb finds empty — and cut the motif-caption. The sentence before it ("He had not found the name by the time she passed below street level.") is the real ending beat; the close must not out-summarize it.

Strongest counter-candidate considered: "The gold one isn't gold. It's confident, though" is figurative and passes — it is June's licensed painter-speak, in dialogue, characterizing a frame sample with technical truth (gilt vs. gold) while doing voice work. "Theo's evening no longer had a card in it" was also weighed: mild personification, but it states a literal, just-witnessed fact (the handoff) and was allowed to stand.

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## Chapter verdict: LLM-CLEAN-FOUND

Nine findings, three blocking. Consolidated orders for the rewriter:

1. **(Blocking)** Replace "There it was again, the ease of being consulted as a unit. The route card seemed less necessary for a dangerous instant." with Theo's observable inaction during Ben's question, so June's correction interrupts behavior, not a summary. Retain "The route card came back against Theo's shirt."
2. **(Blocking)** Cut Ruth's scene to one sharp line ("I saw enough to be worried. Not enough to be right."); break or roughen "That's the reflex I'm asking about," the forms line, and "Make sure it belongs to her" per Section 3.
3. **(Blocking)** Replace the final clause "and followed without a route" with the literal descent and the empty chest pocket; keep "He had not found the name…" as the load of the ending.
4. Cut or concretize "The eight of them arranged themselves badly at first, and better by degrees."
5. Replace "carrying nothing and missing nothing" with one observed Luis sightline behavior.
6. Strip the three certifications from the lithograph paragraph ("no supervision needed," "She was not performing attention," "forgot the outing entirely"); substitute one observable datum of absorption.
7. Replace Mara's clip-lights epigram with a hosting-register pretext; keep the wall assignment.
8. Replace "before the room caught up with him" with the literal step/hand/sitter sequence.
9. Replace "Her weight shifted toward the work, not away from the room" with a literal staying posture.
