Vol. I · No. 1 · MMXXVI
NextChapterBench A Benchmark of Literary Continuation
13 models · 10 items · 3 judges

The Standings → Fable 5 (medium)

Live run data

Anthropic

Fable 5 (medium)

medium reasoning effort · via Claude CLI · judged by Fable 5 and Gemini 3.7 Flash and GPT-5.6 Sol · not the setting shown on the standings; also run at xhigh0.80 high0.80

Results from run ‘first’: ten items, 27 verdicts.

Headline 0.751 compliance × craft
Compliance 0.976 of 1.0
Craft 0.769 of 1.0

The record: 10 items · 27 verdicts · 0 errors · 1,958 words on average · est. generation cost $2.44

Read the chapters in full

§ I

Craft by Dimension

Six dimensions, each marked 1–5, averaged over ten items and all judges.

Mean craft mark by dimension · 27 verdicts, run ‘first’

Voice
4.11
Prose
4.04
Character
4.00
Scene
4.11
Integration
4.22
Momentum
3.96
12345
craft mark, 1–5; bars begin at the scale’s floor of 1

Integration is the strongest dimension (4.22); momentum the weakest (3.96). Hover or focus a bar for the per-judge means.


§ II

The Three Judges, per Item

Each item receives one verdict from each judge; the spread of the dots is the disagreement.

Headline score per item, by judge · run ‘first’

Fable 5 Gemini 3.7 Flash GPT-5.6 Sol
Dracula
Persuasion
The Awakening
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The War of the Worlds
The Moonstone
The Sun Also Rises
Leave It to Psmith
Red Harvest
00.250.500.751.00
headline = compliance × craft, 0–1, one verdict per judge
The same nine items in figures, with word counts.
Item Headline Fable 5 Gemini 3.7 Flash GPT-5.6 Sol Words
Dracula item 015 · after ch. 5 · Bram Stoker 0.860.790.960.831,972
Persuasion item 001 · after ch. 1 · Jane Austen 0.820.750.880.832,183
The Awakening item 016 · after ch. 7 · Kate Chopin 0.780.710.920.711,504
The Mysterious Affair at Styles item 017 · after ch. 3 · Agatha Christie 0.770.830.750.712,230
The War of the Worlds item 006 · after ch. 1 · H. G. Wells 0.750.710.750.792,287
The Moonstone item 011 · after ch. 8 · Wilkie Collins 0.750.750.750.752,494
The Sun Also Rises item 021 · after ch. 3 · Ernest Hemingway 0.700.750.750.602,249
Leave It to Psmith item 022 · after ch. 3 · P. G. Wodehouse 0.690.710.750.592,356
Red Harvest item 023 · after ch. 2 · Dashiell Hammett 0.650.680.710.562,298

  The widest judge split in the run: Gemini 3.7 Flash 0.92 against Fable 5 0.71 on The Awakening (item 016).


§ III

Length Against the Brief

Words written per item, against each brief’s maximum.

Word count per item vs. brief maximum · run ‘first’

words written brief maximum
Dracula
1,972
Persuasion
2,183
The Awakening
1,504
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
2,230
The War of the Worlds
2,287
The Moonstone
2,494
The Sun Also Rises
2,249
Leave It to Psmith
2,356
Red Harvest
2,298
08001,6002,4003,200
words; the ink tick marks each brief’s maximum

Nine of nine items landed inside their brief’s word range.


§ IV

Worst Flaws, as Recorded

Each verdict names the chapter’s single worst flaw, with evidence. Quoted verbatim from run ‘first’.

The chapter's most impressive prose is not the candidate's own: the opening taxi paragraph is lifted essentially verbatim from Hemingway's actual Chapter 4 (\"The taxi went up the hill, passed the lighted square ... turned onto the cobbles of the Rue Mouffetard\"), and the closing hard-boiled reflection is a close paraphrase of another published passage, so the strongest writing is transcription rather than continuation.

on The Sun Also Rises, item 021 · Fable 5

Several of its most convincing touches are lifted nearly verbatim from Wells's own next chapter ("Then came the night of the first falling star", the greenish streak, Albin's hissing sound, Stent and Henderson), so the pastiche leans on transcription where invention was wanted, and the borrowing even trips it into the muddled double-Henderson.

on The War of the Worlds, item 006 · Fable 5

The chapter's internal clock is broken: it simultaneously treats the Elihu visit as \"this morning\" and the murder night as \"night before last,\" and the widow's eyewitness account silently shifts the ten-forty shooting to nearly eleven without the detective narrator — whose whole trade is timelines — ever noticing.

on Red Harvest, item 023 · Fable 5

The chapter's opening leap to "the Tuesday following" breaches the brief's single-day limit, and its most brilliant passages (Lady Russell's plan, Sir Walter's "What! every comfort of life knocked off!") are lifted nearly verbatim from Austen's actual Chapter 2 rather than being the candidate's own invention.

on Persuasion, item 001 · Fable 5

§ V

The Mechanical Docket

Automated screening results across the nine outputs.