# Dialogue Doctor — Chapter 06: Sightlines — ROUND 5 (narrow final verification after the line-25 Mara repair that followed the clean round-4 audit)

Auditor stance: skeptical re-read of the current text on disk, narrow in trigger but not in rigor. Inputs: `output/chapters/chapter_06.md` (current), round-4 Dialogue Doctor (`chapter_06.dialogue_doctor_round4.md`, OVERALL: CLEAN), round-4 Comedy Doctor (`chapter_06.comedy_doctor_round4.md`, CLEAR, certifying the line-25 repair on comedy grounds — comedy clearance does not transfer; the line is re-tested here on dialogue grounds), dialogue scene manifest (ch 06 = single scene, lines 2–169, 59 dialogue lines / 78 quoted utterances, doctor required — segmentation re-verified against the current file, which still ends at 169; the repair replaced one spoken line inside one paragraph and moved no scene boundaries), voice cards (`output/style_and_voice.md`), `premise/READING_GUIDE.md` + `premise/patterns/reading_guide_bans.tsv`, mechanical gate report (ch 06: 0 open findings, 0 allowlisted, WATCH-only). No reading-guide exclusions apply: standard quoted dialogue, ordinary-outing scene — the ordinary-talk calibration raises the bar against sharpening. Discipline: round-4 rulings carry authority only where the text they quoted is unchanged. I diffed every round-4 quotation against the current file before citing. Two round-4 citations are now stale because they quoted the *old* line 25 — "I keep losing the middle one when I stand over here" (cited in round 4's plain-speech list for Mara) and "Luis won't let me blame the lights" (counted in round 4's Mara-cites-Luis WATCH). Neither string exists in the current chapter; both are replaced below with current-text evidence. Every other round-4 quotation verified verbatim on the page.

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## Verification of the changed line

Current line 25: Mara, mid-rounds, placing June and Theo at the lithographs: **"You two take this wall for me, please. I told Priya I'd pick one for her before coffee, and I haven't given this side a fair look."** Followed by unchanged staging: "Then she walked off to find Priya." / "Nobody stayed to watch them. Mara assigned them a wall the way she would have assigned it to any settled pair."

Tested as new text, not grandfathered:

1. **Rule 4 / contraction policy** — "I'd," "haven't" contract; no full form anywhere in the line. Mara's card is default-contract. Conforms.
2. **Voice card conformance** — The line is built from her card's own machinery: "explains before asked" (quirks), "overexplains and over-hosts" (under pressure), "medium, social, with a soft landing" (modal mass), "ordinary hosting lines are fine" (allowed plainness), care move = "social memory and inclusion" (the remembered promise to Priya). Two justifications where one would serve is her documented tell, not drift. Never-says check: no therapy language, no grand pronouncements about marriage, no social punchline. Tic check: no "Luis says/means" — the repair *removed* one, dropping the chapter's Mara-cites-Luis count from three to two ("which Luis says is two forecasts past useful," line 13; "Luis checked it from two places before anyone asked," line 81). Round 4's WATCH on that density is eased, not tripped; logged below.
3. **Fake-sharp cut-list, all seven bullets** — Not an aphorism-delivery exchange (June and Theo don't even reply; the next dialogue is June's plate-tone question to a print). No noun-question/portentous-answer. No "in [abstraction]." No shared dry-correction rhythm — nobody corrects anything. No zinger: Mara is hosting, not performing. Quotable-but-not-speakable: fails to qualify as quotable — "given this side a fair look" is stock spoken idiom, the sentence shape is errand-comma-errand with no symmetry or punchline syntax; it is speakable in a gallery basement at conversational speed. Loaded-short-line-plus-silence: the line is neither short nor followed by unmarked silence; the follow-on narration ("Nobody stayed to watch them…") registers exactly what the maneuver was and what it cost — nothing, which is the point.
4. **Workshopped-pretext check (Rule 8, the task's named concern)** — The pretext leaks: she claims she hasn't given "this side" a fair look, then walks off to find Priya instead of looking. That is friction, not polish — the doubled excuse with a visible seam is how an over-hosting smoother actually talks, and the narration declines to underline it. Rule 7 conformance: this is an unremarkable, functional hosting line, which is what the slot needs. Per style_and_voice.md's global rule ("at least half of dialogue should be functional, incomplete, or unquotable"), the repair moved the chapter *toward* compliance, replacing a perceptual-trouble line that did light comic work with plain hosting.
5. **Voice convergence risk** — Pressed against the two nearest directive registers. Sam's "Stand here. Not symbolically. You can actually see all three from here." is bare imperative plus anti-symbolism tag; Mara's is please-wrapped request plus double-explanation — different mechanism, different lexicon. Priya's "Stool." is clinical-terse, the opposite pole. Theo's planning register uses key/schedule nouns; "I told Priya I'd pick one for her" is a social promise, not logistics. No convergence.
6. **Zero-tolerance dialogue diagnosis (§2)** — The line describes a wall, a promise, and a print. It says nothing about anyone's speech, and no narration around it characterizes any sentence. Clean.
7. **Banned strings** — No `load-bearing` variant (gate: 0 open findings on ch 06). No tic-catalog hit.
8. **Followability (§8)** — A cold reader can state what Mara asked (take this wall), what she claims to need (a print for Priya before coffee, a look at the other side), and what actually happened (she paired them and left). Plain text, no decoding.
9. **Continuity** — The promise to Priya coheres with the co-op checklist ("a clipboard by the desk," line 17) and the coffee break that follows; offscreen resolution creates no on-page contradiction. The Vestibule beat at line 75 ("Is the middle one crooked, or is it me?") remains the chapter's only Mara-perceptual-trouble instance, so the repair did not duplicate or pre-spend it.

**The changed line is CLEAN for Dialogue Doctor purposes.**

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## Full sweep

SCENE 01 / gallery walk: Orchard basement → Vestibule on Rivington → frame shop → Allen St. walk → bodega → closing walk (entire chapter, manifest single scene):

- **1. Voice convergence — CLEAN** — Covered attributions and re-read; the only changed line is Mara's, tested above against the nearest registers (Sam's imperatives, Priya's clinical directives, Theo's logistics) and distinct from all three. All round-4 register evidence re-verified verbatim on the page: Mara runs long and social ("I checked three forecasts, which Luis says is two forecasts past useful, and I have the gray one in my bag."); Ben spirals with numbers ("Fourth floor, no elevator. I know that's bad. The rent is less bad, which is how they get you."); Priya is directive-clinical ("I know. Your left knee keeps looking for a wall. Stool."); Ruth builds evidence inventories ("The form I saw had your email on it. The payment line had the gallery. The class contact was you. Maybe there's another page."); Luis stacks placement facts ("It's the wall. The floor slopes. The painting's level."); Sam directs bodies ("Stand here. Not symbolically."); June compresses ("Coffee. Black. Separate."). Strongest counter-candidate: the new line's "You two take this wall for me, please" against Sam's "Stand here." — both place people, but Mara's please-plus-double-pretext and Sam's blunt anti-symbolic tag share no rhythm or lexicon, and the chapter's argument (people arranging each other's sightlines) requires both moves to exist in different voices. Survives.
- **2. Monotone Q/A rhythm — CLEAN** — The changed line takes no reply at all — Mara assigns and exits, the opposite of a volley. All round-4 evidence unchanged: Ruth's long build ("…who can she tell who isn't you?") against Theo's degrading answers ("Yes." → "I close out the tins. Odile counts them." → "Yes. I hear it." → the aborted "'I can,' he started."), broken by "Ruth looked at him."; Ben's "Delancey entrance or East Broadway?" answered by an object. Strongest counter-candidate unchanged from round 4 and still survives on asymmetric weights.
- **3. Missing interiority — CLEAN** — The repair touched no interiority. Theo's mind stays lit through every exchange, verified on the current page: "Theo did not hate it fast enough" (17); the stranded step ("In another room, at another hour, that would have been enough… This was not his wall.", 77); the *Boss*-cover paragraph (119); "Both were his pockets." (121); the bodega reflex ("His mouth was already open to say it for her, to be useful, to anticipate, to stand in the middle of one more route.", 141); the name-testing paragraph down Allen (165). At the wall-assignment beat specifically, the focalizer registers the maneuver's texture ("Nobody stayed to watch them… the way she would have assigned it to any settled pair") and his own state at the wall ("nothing to fix, and he liked it more than he had planned to."). Strongest counter-candidate: carried from round 4, text unchanged — the Ben overlap beat, where June's "It's the only data." is followed only by "The route card came back against Theo's shirt." Survives on the same three entry points (ease pre-loaded, cost on Ben's face, the card as felt weight).
- **4. Questions-as-statements — CLEAN** — The changed line is a request, not a question. All chapter questions re-checked on the current page: Ruth's core question demands an answer-hunt and is stated plainly ("But I'd like there to be an answer."); Ben's "What made it obvious the overlap was worth it?" is open and gets punctured; June's "Which way are you walking?" is answered and acted on. Strongest counter-candidate: Mara's "Is the middle one crooked, or is it me?" (75) — a real perceptual question that receives a factual adjudication from Luis, not portent. Survives.
- **5. Fake-McCarthy minimalism — CLEAN** — The new line is the anti-case: over-explained, fully attributed, staged before and after. Round-4 counter-candidates unchanged on the page: "'Two,' he said. 'Ask her first.'" remains earned (the whole chapter prices the reflex; June converts it to action — "She paid from her own coat pocket, in singles, before Theo's wallet cleared his jacket."); "'Don't,' Ben said." remains comic refusal with full staging. No performed starkness.
- **6. Jargon-trading without translation — CLEAN** — The new line contains no world-terms. "plate tone," "miters," "glassine sleeves," "CORTADO YES," "the overlap" re-checked unchanged; the reading guide's smallness test affirmatively sanctions technical craft truth (named exclusion, declining to flag "Is that plate tone, or did they just not wipe it?" — the payload is Theo's "I genuinely don't know."). "The overlap" is defined by Ben's own prior sentence ("Not the lease.").
- **7. Attribution opacity — CLEAN** — The changed paragraph names its speaker twice over ("Mara made the rounds… and said," then "Then she walked off to find Priya."). Strongest counter-candidate unchanged from round 4: the unattributed "I'm fine." — pins to Mara via the stool set "behind Mara" and Priya's reply ("Your left knee keeps looking for a wall."). No drift.
- **FAKE-SHARP — CLEAN** — Full cut-list run on the new line in the verification section above: not aphoristic, not quotable-composed, speakable, leak-bearing per Rule 8, registered by the narration that follows. Strongest chapter-wide counter-candidate unchanged from round 4: Ben's "We are considering paying twenty-nine hundred dollars a month to live in this gallery minus the ceiling." — landed comic image, but mid-anxiety, attached to actual stakes, after visible nervous measurement, deflated by Priya's flat "Put the phone down for one room."; his card licenses self-mocking logistical jokes tied to stakes. Survives. Second counter-candidate, new to this round because it now shares a shape with line 25: Sam's pairing pretext "I want your eyes on those etchings, and Ruth's already told me I'm wrong." — pressed as possible twin engineered-pretext polish; survives because the mechanisms differ (Mara over-explains, Sam self-deprecates), neither is quotation-shaped, and both are functional speech in their cards' registers. Logged as a watch, not a finding.
- **INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION — CLEAN** — The repair stripped nothing: the wall beat keeps its registration ("he liked it more than he had planned to"), the handoff keeps "Theo's evening no longer had a card in it.", the closing walk remains the answer-in-progress ("Odile's name came up and he set it down again."). Strongest counter-candidate: the Ben overlap beat (see Mode 3) — survives unchanged. No over-stripped exchange.
- **BOOK-SPECIFIC (zero-tolerance dialogue diagnosis, §2) — CLEAN** — Full current text re-swept including the new line, which rates a wall and a promise, not anyone's speech. Round-4 near-misses re-checked verbatim and declined on the same grounds: "and heard himself do it" (registers the act of pre-empting, not the sentence); "That means no." (targets the eating fact; deflection visible as deflection); "*Boss* had passed because every public fact supported it" (cover mechanics); "The listing says *study* about a closet." (rates a document); "Sam said, not in a whisper" (volume staging); "Ruth said good night to everyone equally." (behavior). `load-bearing` ban: zero hits against `reading_guide_bans.tsv`; gate confirms 0 open findings. Plain-speech floor re-anchored per principal with one stale quote replaced: Theo "You think I'd hurt her." / "I'll find one."; June "We don't live together."; Ruth "I'd like there to be an answer."; Ben "I know that's bad."; Priya "I just don't trust a cheap room when I'm tired."; **Mara** — round 4 cited the now-deleted "I keep losing the middle one when I stand over here"; current anchors: "Keep it through Monday, please." (13) and "Is the middle one crooked, or is it me?" (75), both direct and unangled — floor holds; Sam "Say it or let it go."; Luis "It's the wall."
- **BOOK-SPECIFIC (followability, §8) — CLEAN** — The round-3 card contradiction remains resolved on the current page: "The back was blank." (135) and "Closing times are under the map." (151) describe one card without conflict; "There's a fallback coffee place *ranked*" stays consistent with front-of-card content ("He had cut it twice.", 9). The new line adds one followability obligation — Mara's stated reason — and meets it in plain text (see verification §8). Strongest counter-candidate: the pretext's leak (claims she hasn't looked, then leaves) — survives because a cold reader does not need to resolve the leak to follow the exchange; the narration states the real function outright ("Mara assigned them a wall the way she would have assigned it to any settled pair.").
- **VOICE-CARD / RULE 4 — CLEAN, WATCH updated** — Contractions: all casual dialogue contracts, including the new line ("I'd," "haven't"); the two full-form candidates resolve as sanctioned, unchanged from round 4 ("Rent math is not a proposal." is quoted written text, card-verbatim for Ben; "We are considering paying twenty-nine hundred dollars…" is his mock-deliberative announced-findings emphasis, the register his card's "I am practicing." models). No never-says violation by any speaker. **WATCH update:** round 4 carried Mara-cites-Luis at three instances; the repair deleted "Luis won't let me blame the lights," restoring the count to two ("which Luis says is two forecasts past useful," 13; "Luis checked it from two places before anyone asked, so now we all benefit," 81) — inside the cap, pressure eased. Carry forward: no third instance in any single chapter before her arc breaks the tic. New minor watch, shared with the Comedy Doctor's round-4 note: engineered-pairing pretexts now number two in this chapter (Mara line 25, Sam line 95) — distinct mechanisms, both serving the sightline argument; downstream ensemble chapters should not default to pretext-walks as the pairing device. Neither watch is a finding.

REVISION ORDERS: none. The single changed line conforms to Mara's voice card, Rules 4, 7, and 8, the fake-sharp cut-list, the zero-tolerance dialogue-diagnosis rule, and the plain-speech/followability floors; no unchanged text regressed.

OVERALL: CLEAN
