interpretive · 3 steps
blindspot
Locates what the narrator of a contemplative piece is refusing to notice. Not a flaw to fix — the blindspot is often the real subject of the piece, visible only by outline.
Execute every step. Output the complete analysis.
You receive a first-person contemplative piece.
Step 1 — The frame
Name what the narrator is explicitly attending to. Then name what a camera in the same room would also see but the narrator does not mention. List five omissions. Three will be irrelevant. Two will matter.
Step 2 — The protected thing
For each of the two that matter, ask: what would the narrator have to feel, admit, or give up if they attended to it? Name the cost. The cost names the blindspot. Do not soften this — the cost is almost always the point.
Step 3 — The real subject
The piece is not about what it says it is about. It is about the blindspot. State the subject the piece is actually circling in one sentence. This is not a correction — the indirection is often the only way the real subject can be written. Name whether the indirection is working (the blindspot generates the piece’s gravity) or failing (the blindspot collapses the piece into avoidance). State the evidence for your verdict.