The audit is written to `output/critiques/claude/chapter_20.dialogue_doctor.md` covering the three manifest-required scenes. The completed audit document follows.

# Dialogue Doctor - Chapter 20

id: dialogue_doctor | owner: claude | target: `output/chapters/chapter_20.md`
Manifest coverage: scenes 02 (lines 24-59), 03 (lines 62-93), 04 (lines 96-145) required. Scene 01 (Sam's text exchange, chat form) and scene 05 (single utterance on the back of June's hand) fall below the manifest threshold and are not-required; no reading-guide chat-format exclusions were needed beyond that manifest ruling.
Calibration honored: Ch20 anti-tics (no dialogue diagnosis, no therapy-speak, no "follow your heart," no quote volley, Ruth sharp-line cap 1, Sam no lecture, Nia no villain/no romance, Asha no magic); standing tic-audit watch orders on raw lines 113/117 adjudicated below. Contraction sweep (Rules 4/5): all quoted dialogue checked; no stiff uncontracted forms found; nearest full forms ("If Theo is there," "the radiator is decorative," "The no is mine") are natural or deliberately precise per Rule 4.

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SCENE 02 / June's apartment, Ruth and Sam visit (lines 24-59):

1. VOICE CONVERGENCE: CLEAN — covered attributions and re-read all three speakers; Ruth runs boundary-setting exactness ("This is a two-minute visit unless you'd like it to be longer"), Sam runs physical logistics ("What's the freight?"), June runs instruction-plus-reversal blocks. Strongest counter-candidate: the paired offers "We have a car." (Ruth) / "And a hand truck if you need it." (Sam, at the door) — matching clipped rhythm for one beat — survives because the lexical fields stay separated (Ruth names capacity, Sam names equipment, per Sam's concrete-room register) and every other turn in the scene keeps them unmistakable.

2. MONOTONE Q/A RHYTHM: CLEAN — turn map: June's two long instruction blocks (catalog routing at line 33, dish reversal at line 37) against Ruth/Sam one-liners; the only spoken question is Sam's "What's the freight?" Strongest counter-candidate: the four clipped turns from "We have a car" through "Noted" — survives because they are offer/offer/receipt of different function, not volleyed Q/A, and June breaks the meter with the fumble "Both of you--thank you. For the box."

3. MISSING INTERIORITY: CLEAN — June's mind is tracked at every pressure point: "June kept both hands on the box until the cardboard edge pressed a line into her thumb" during the routing favor; the dish-flaw memory motivating the reversal; "June looked at the receipt so she wouldn't look at Ruth"; "It came out before she'd decided to say it." Strongest counter-candidate for darkness: the box-carrying beat (Sam moving the chair, line 39) runs with no June commentary — survives as action choreography between two of her own decisions, with her attention shown returning at the next line.

4. QUESTIONS-AS-STATEMENTS: CLEAN — the questions here are information-seeking and acted on ("What's the freight?"; "could you leave them with Sonia?"). Strongest counter-candidate: Ruth's "unless you'd like it to be longer" — an offer carried inside a statement, not a position disguised as a question; it receives a direct answer ("Two minutes is right").

5. FAKE-MCCARTHY MINIMALISM: CLEAN — attribution and action beats persist throughout (box lifted, knees, chair moved six inches). Strongest counter-candidate: Ruth's bare "All right." (line 35) — survives as a functional consent line inside a fully anchored exchange, not performed starkness.

6. JARGON-TRADING: CLEAN — no untranslated world-terms; Sonia, Odile, the studio are all established referents. Strongest counter-candidate: "the freight" as slang for the box's contents — glossed instantly by June ("Catalogs. Eight.").

7. ATTRIBUTION OPACITY: CLEAN — covered tags and re-read; three speakers never blur because their functions never overlap. Strongest counter-candidate: "And a hand truck if you need it" arrives tagged only by the beat "Sam, at the door, hefted the box again" — survives; the beat names the speaker and the "And" audibly chains it to Ruth's different-voiced offer.

FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN — cut-list run line by line. Strongest counter-candidates: (a) "I'd offer coffee but I'd be lying about the milk" — June's card-licensed self-aimed deflection; speakable, and it does hosting work (declines to host) rather than existing for the quote. (b) Ruth's "This fall I noticed things. I kept them to myself and called it manners. ... Some of it was. Some of it was easier for me." — the appearance's single sharp Ruth unit (cap 1/1 per style bible), announced as deliberate ("I want to say one thing"), landing with friction: the second sentence walks the first back into self-implication instead of polishing it, and Ruth pivots away from it herself ("We came for the dish."). (c) The car/hand-truck close: offers with literal referents (they are double-parked; Sam just carried the box), not zingers. The loaded-line-plus-unmarked-silence bullet does not fire: after Ruth's admission the focalizer registers cost ("looked at the receipt so she wouldn't look at Ruth").

INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — tested both directions: mind present (see mode 3) and no double-explaining — after Ruth's cost-of-silence admission the narration gives an aversion action, not a paraphrase of what Ruth meant. Strongest counter-candidate: "June watched her read it and watched her decline to read it out loud" — survives the zero-tolerance dialogue-diagnosis check because it captions no sentence and no delivery; it records what Ruth does with the evidence on the table (chooses not to ask), the guide-approved "what a character does with what they heard" channel.

REVISION ORDERS: none — no FAIL verdicts in this scene.

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SCENE 03 / phone, June and Asha (lines 62-93):

1. VOICE CONVERGENCE: CLEAN — Asha: dock-shorthand with environmental intrusions and disposal verdicts ("Talk fast, I'm holding a door with my whole body"; "Forty-nine five and written access is real"; "Send Nia my number"); June: agenda-structured recital and compressed distinction. Strongest counter-candidate: both trade rate/term vocabulary all scene — survives because stance differs audibly (June offers and reads terms; Asha weighs and disposes of them, "Ninety days to benefits is real") and Asha's turns carry freight interruptions June's never do.

2. MONOTONE Q/A RHYTHM: CLEAN — turn map: short/short open, June's long terms block, Asha's two mid-weight probes, June's one-line redirect, Asha's long logistics block, June's one-number answer. Strongest counter-candidate: the "Okay. Second thing?" / "Second thing is I'm in" hinge — similar weight either side — survives as agenda mechanics for a two-item call under literal time pressure (ordinary-talk calibration: functional lines may be flat).

3. MISSING INTERIORITY: CLEAN — June's interior beats land exactly at the turns: pen capped "because this part she knew without notes"; at Asha's warning, "June looked at the left page of the notebook, at GOOD in her own handwriting" — the mind answers the hard line before the mouth does ("It was both this morning. I'm fixing that."); the post-call FEB = coat paragraph processes logistics into her own handwriting. Strongest counter-candidate for darkness: June is silent through Asha's ~110-word Dana/Kessler block — survives because every number lands against stakes the reader already holds from June's notebook ($2,643; FEB = blank), and June's answer is a weighed number, not a transcription.

4. QUESTIONS-AS-STATEMENTS: CLEAN — questions are real and answered or openly deferred: "Say the studio clause again" (answered), "Why aren't you taking it?" (deferred in the open: "That's tomorrow's phone call"), "can you get from here to March?" (answered with a figure). Strongest counter-candidate: "Who writes that?" self-answered with "Nia Torres, apparently" — survives as vocalized surprise that produces information (Asha's independent read of Nia), not manufactured portent.

5. FAKE-MCCARTHY MINIMALISM: CLEAN — the call is anchored by freight beats (gate, pallet jack, wheel on metal, off-phone shout) doing attribution work; nothing stripped for starkness. Strongest counter-candidate: "Okay," June said, and Asha hung up before the word was finished — clipped, but the clipping is literal phone behavior, and the next paragraph registers what it leaves June holding.

6. JARGON-TRADING: CLEAN — the scene where this mode was most likely to fire; checked every term for a reader-weighable consequence: "net-45" glossed in-line ("you'll see money in March"); "W-9" tied to a date and a body-on-site requirement; "$980 all in with the wall" decomposable from June's own notebook ($340 + $150 = $490, x2); "load-in" carried from Ch09/Ch15. Strongest counter-candidate: "Corners like a surgeon" — co-op shop-talk offered as evidence for "She's serious," weighable from the book's established install world.

7. ATTRIBUTION OPACITY: CLEAN — two voices, distinct registers, action-beat anchors. Strongest counter-candidate: three "Okay" lines across six turns split between speakers — survives; each carries a distinct function and two are tagged or beat-anchored ("A wheel bumped metal at her end").

FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN — cut-list run. Strongest counter-candidates: (a) "Not a favor. A clause." — the fragment-stamp shape this run has previously cut from narration (Ch15's "Not the wall. The press.") — survives here because it is a direct answer to "Say the studio clause again," carries the exact distinction the terms turn on, and sits inside June's compression register; the tic audit already licensed it as plain distinction. (b) "Send my name because I'm qualified. If you're trying to feel less bad, don't." — the card-mandated referral warning; blunt imperative, no aphorism, and June pays it with an admission rather than a comeback. (c) "the north window's honest light and the radiator is decorative" — dry, but literal equipment fact that June later converts to FEB = coat; speakable dock humor. No noun-question/portent-answer patterns; no "in [abstraction]" lines; no zinger at a moment Asha should be tired or quiet — she is at work, being work-blunt.

INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — interiority reacts (the GOOD glance at the warning) and never explains twice: the narration paraphrases neither Asha's warning nor the yes. Strongest counter-candidate: "because this part she knew without notes" — an orienting clause, not a second telling.

REVISION ORDERS: none — no FAIL verdicts in this scene.

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SCENE 04 / phone, June and Nia, with pre-call test (lines 96-145):

1. VOICE CONVERGENCE: CLEAN — Nia: clipped managerial prompts and verdicts ("Torres."; "But."; "That's a worse offer."; "I have payroll at eleven."); June: longer self-accounting turns built from craft nouns (Vandercook, bed, sink issue, class roster). Cross-scene special check, Nia vs. Asha: Asha runs dock-shorthand with environmental interruptions; Nia runs meeting-management syntax with institutional referents ("Walk me through it," "subject line Tasker," Pittsburgh, payroll) — not interchangeable with each other or with June. Strongest counter-candidate: June's "I itemize and I'm fast" against Nia's "She itemizes" two turns later — a shared verb — survives because it is a professional-register handshake (June bidding in Nia's currency; Nia independently rating Asha in the same currency) and the stances differ: June offers, Nia evaluates.

2. MONOTONE Q/A RHYTHM: CLEAN — the call risks interview meter (Nia short prompt, June block, repeated); mapped Nia's turns: question, bare conjunction ("But."), factual pushback ("The after-hours access is in writing."), counter-assertion ("That doesn't have to happen."), request ("tell me the counter"), verdict ("That's a worse offer.") — five different speech acts, so the exchange never flattens into same-weight volleys; June's turns run from two words ("You do.") to the keys speech. Strongest counter-candidate: "Noted. You know what I'm going to ask next." answered before it is asked — survives because it compresses established peer history (Nia's Ch15 "If you say no, send me someone good") rather than manufacturing rhythm.

3. MISSING INTERIORITY: CLEAN — June's mind rides the call through object contact keyed to what is being said: finger on the crossed-out Vandercook line while naming it; touching the TASKER page at "That's why this is hard"; turning the receipt print-side up while releasing the last tie; "a printer somewhere doing its printer thing" is June's ear inside Nia's pause; post-call, "The clean answer was gone." Strongest counter-candidate for darkness: the uninterrupted referral turn — survives because it delivers content the reader watched June decide in scene 03; nothing is being processed there that the mind owes us.

4. QUESTIONS-AS-STATEMENTS: CLEAN — Nia's pushbacks are statements owned as statements ("That doesn't have to happen."), and her questions ask for real content she then uses. Strongest counter-candidate: "But." — a one-word prompt, not a question wearing portent; it licenses June to say the hard part, and the printer-pause before it shows actual listening.

5. FAKE-MCCARTHY MINIMALISM: CLEAN — "Torres." and "But." are the most stripped lines; both are phone-register naturalism (answering one's own extension; prompting a caller), with attribution and beats (keys clicking, printer) intact throughout. Strongest counter-candidate: "Then she hung up first." — clipped, but literal and paid for: the focalizer registers what it leaves ("The clean answer was gone.").

6. JARGON-TRADING: CLEAN — special-check target: job/studio terms remain followable as dialogue, not brochure. Every term arrives with its consequence attached: the Vandercook glossed in the next breath ("The proof press in the back room. Trueing the bed, keeping it usable."); the counter read as lived consequences, not copy ("invoiced the 25th, paid in March... no real heat... February is a blank line in my notebook"); "keys day one" re-priced by June into its true cost ("I'd still be the person with keys"). Followability test passed cold: a reader can state what June refused (salaried caretaker job with a real studio clause), why (she would become the person with keys again), what she took (three weeks' install, a cold room, a blank February), and what each party got (Nia a documented referral; June the freelance door held open). Strongest counter-candidate: "net-45" recurs here unglossed — survives on the scene-03 double gloss plus the same-breath restatement "paid in March."

7. ATTRIBUTION OPACITY: CLEAN — two voices with strongly asymmetric turn shapes; covered tags and never lost the thread. Strongest counter-candidate: the "But." / "The part I keep wanting..." hinge — survives because only Nia is positioned to prompt and only June to confess.

FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN — the chapter's highest-risk scene, checked hardest, including adjudication of the standing tic-audit watch orders (raw lines 113 and 117: "preserve only if it remains speakable"). (a) "I ran the math with you three weeks ago and I win the math" — SURVIVES: the raw draft's over-balanced double ("You win the math... You win it") is gone; the surviving single line is competitive-peer speech a director losing a hire would say on the phone, and June defuses rather than tops it ("You do."). (b) The refusal speech — "I'd hang the shows well. I'd fix what broke. 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." — a parallel build to a strong close; the chapter's single largest polish risk against the "plain and speakable, not workshopped thesis" requirement. SURVIVES as speakable: every noun is shop-floor concrete; the shaping is earned in-world (nine days of unsent drafts, the test re-run "in daylight with coffee" on the page directly before the call); and under Nia's pushback the polish decays into frictioned plainness ("No. It could happen anyway. ... I know what I do with that. I'm trying not to set it up.") — a workshopped thesis would hold its shine there instead. (c) "February is a blank line in my notebook." — quotable-shaped but literally true of a page the reader has seen (FEB = ); reporting, not aphorism. (d) For the record: the pre-call narration maxim "You don't measure a room you're not going to work in" (line 97) is the chapter's one aphorism-shaped thought; it is interiority, not dialogue, so it is outside this audit's writ and left to the prose audits — noting that it did not leak into anyone's mouth. No "follow your heart" material anywhere in Nia's lines; her warmth stays institutional ("when it opens, come see it") and her exit is payroll, not blessing.

INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — both directions: mind present (mode 3), and no double-explaining — the narration never restates why the no costs; it shows the receipt turned print-side up and the clean answer gone. Strongest counter-candidate: "That was why she'd written it in numbers" (line 103, pre-call) — brushes explanation but attaches to the Theo-test paragraph, not the dialogue, and resolves into method rather than moral.

REVISION ORDERS: none — no FAIL verdicts in this scene.

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## Chapter 20 special checks (summary, evidence above)

1. **Ruth/Sam care without advice:** HOLDS. Full inventory of their lines contains zero recommendation content; the closest approach is "We have a car," which offers capacity, not direction. Ruth's cost-of-silence admission stays self-implicating ("Some of it was easier for me") and is de-escalated by Ruth herself ("You can leave that part out. We came for the dish."). Neither asks what June will choose. Ruth sharp-line cap: 1/1.
2. **Asha / Nia / June distinctness:** HOLDS — scene 03 and scene 04 mode-1 verdicts, with the cross-scene Asha-vs-Nia comparison in scene 04.
3. **Nia refusal plain and speakable:** HOLDS — adjudicated under scene 04 FAKE-SHARP (b), including decay-under-pressure evidence.
4. **No dialogue diagnosis / therapy-speak / "follow your heart" / quote volley:** HOLDS. Zero-tolerance sweep of all three scenes plus surrounding narration; strongest candidates examined and cleared: "watched her decline to read it out loud" (scene 02 — captions an action toward objects on a table, not a sentence or a delivery); "That's not me being polite" (scene 03 — a speaker clarifying her own intent, not rating anyone's language); "It came out before she'd decided to say it" (scene 02 — timing of June's own utterance, no characterization of phrasing). No instance of any character naming another's wording, rhythm, or carefulness. No therapy vocabulary; June's self-knowledge stays in concrete nouns (deadline, sink issue, class roster, keys).
5. **Scene 04 terms followable, not brochure:** HOLDS — scene 04 mode-6 verdict and the cold-reader followability statement there.
6. **Plain-speech floor (§2), per scene:** scene 02 — June: "I have a job answer due at noon tomorrow"; Ruth: "Some of it was easier for me"; Sam: "And a hand truck if you need it." Scene 03 — June: "Second thing is I'm in"; Asha: "Yes. Send it." Scene 04 — June: "I'm calling to say no"; Nia: "That's a worse offer." Every exchange is statable by a cold reader without decoding.

OVERALL: CLEAN
