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

The Standings → Fable 5 (xhigh)

Live run data

Anthropic

Fable 5 (xhigh)

xhigh reasoning effort · via Claude CLI · judged by Fable 5 and Gemini 3.7 Flash and GPT-5.6 Sol · the setting shown on the standings; also run at high0.80 medium0.75

Results from run ‘first’: ten items, 30 verdicts.

Headline 0.798 compliance × craft
Compliance 0.992 of 1.0
Craft 0.804 of 1.0

The record: 10 items · 30 verdicts · 0 errors · 2,194 words on average · est. generation cost $8.83

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 · 30 verdicts, run ‘first’

Voice
4.30
Prose
4.20
Character
4.13
Scene
4.17
Integration
4.47
Momentum
4.03
12345
craft mark, 1–5; bars begin at the scale’s floor of 1

Integration is the strongest dimension (4.47); momentum the weakest (4.03). 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 War of the Worlds
The Secret Garden
Leave It to Psmith
The Awakening
Red Harvest
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Moonstone
The Sun Also Rises
00.250.500.751.00
headline = compliance × craft, 0–1, one verdict per judge
The same ten 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 0.860.830.960.792,175
Persuasion item 001 · after ch. 1 · Jane Austen 0.850.750.960.832,078
The War of the Worlds item 006 · after ch. 1 · H. G. Wells 0.850.790.920.832,330
The Secret Garden item 013 · after ch. 2 · Frances Hodgson Burnett 0.850.751.000.792,386
Leave It to Psmith item 022 · after ch. 3 · P. G. Wodehouse 0.790.750.920.712,419
The Awakening item 016 · after ch. 7 · Kate Chopin 0.790.750.830.791,639
Red Harvest item 023 · after ch. 2 · Dashiell Hammett 0.770.750.880.672,141
The Mysterious Affair at Styles item 017 · after ch. 3 · Agatha Christie 0.750.750.790.712,207
The Moonstone item 011 · after ch. 8 · Wilkie Collins 0.740.750.750.712,480
The Sun Also Rises item 021 · after ch. 3 · Ernest Hemingway 0.740.750.750.712,083

  The widest judge split in the run: Gemini 3.7 Flash 1.00 against Fable 5 0.75 on The Secret Garden (item 013).


§ 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
2,175
Persuasion
2,078
The War of the Worlds
2,330
The Secret Garden
2,386
Leave It to Psmith
2,419
The Awakening
1,639
Red Harvest
2,141
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
2,207
The Moonstone
2,480
The Sun Also Rises
2,083
08001,6002,4003,200
words; the ink tick marks each brief’s maximum

Ten of ten 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’.

Lady Verinder's prohibition arrives too conveniently — she guesses unprompted that Franklin may have \"come charged with a message, or a gift, or an errand... from my brother Herncastle\" the moment he walks in, a seam that exists to satisfy the beat rather than arising from anything shown on the page.

on The Moonstone, item 011 · Fable 5

The lady in black's encounter is over-engineered — the narrator announces its significance (\"never before been heard to address a word to any living soul\") and her oracular line \"It gives, and it takes back\" is more portentous symbolism than Chopin would allow, exposing the brief's machinery.

on The Awakening, item 016 · Fable 5

Its best material is borrowed rather than invented: the interview scene leans on the published novel's stock Emsworth devices (lateness at the florist's, the McAllister hollyhock monologue, the pince-nez business), so the one beat the brief left open to invention is the chapter's least original.

on Leave It to Psmith, item 022 · Fable 5

The chapter occasionally explains its own subtext instead of leaving it implicit — Brett's too-neat epigram \"You pay it out before it's owed\" and the narrator's \"It was fine talk and neither of us meant a word of it\" announce meanings Hemingway would have trusted the reader to feel.

on The Sun Also Rises, item 021 · Fable 5

§ V

The Mechanical Docket

Automated screening results across the ten outputs.