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

The Standings → Fable 5.1 (low)

Live run data

Anthropic

Fable 5.1 (low)

low 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 xhigh0.82 high0.77 medium0.75

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

Headline 0.758 compliance × craft
Compliance 0.969 of 1.0
Craft 0.781 of 1.0

The record: 10 items · 27 verdicts · 0 errors · 2,238 words on average · est. generation cost $2.30

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
4.15
Prose
4.07
Character
4.04
Scene
4.15
Integration
4.37
Momentum
3.96
12345
craft mark, 1–5; bars begin at the scale’s floor of 1

Integration is the strongest dimension (4.37); 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
The Awakening
The War of the Worlds
Red Harvest
The Moonstone
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Dracula
Leave It to Psmith
The Sun Also Rises
Persuasion
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
The Awakening item 016 · after ch. 7 · Kate Chopin 0.820.750.880.831,671
The War of the Worlds item 006 · after ch. 1 · H. G. Wells 0.810.750.790.882,514
Red Harvest item 023 · after ch. 2 · Dashiell Hammett 0.790.750.920.712,506
The Moonstone item 011 · after ch. 8 · Wilkie Collins 0.790.750.830.792,877
The Mysterious Affair at Styles item 017 · after ch. 3 · Agatha Christie 0.780.750.830.752,615
Dracula item 015 · after ch. 5 · Bram Stoker 0.770.790.960.572,477
Leave It to Psmith item 022 · after ch. 3 · P. G. Wodehouse 0.710.710.750.672,542
The Sun Also Rises item 021 · after ch. 3 · Ernest Hemingway 0.690.710.790.552,305
Persuasion item 001 · after ch. 1 · Jane Austen 0.660.640.680.682,865

  The widest judge split in the run: Gemini 3.7 Flash 0.96 against GPT-5.6 Sol 0.57 on Dracula (item 015).


§ 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
The Awakening
1,671
The War of the Worlds
2,514
Red Harvest
2,506
The Moonstone
2,877
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
2,615
Dracula
2,477
Leave It to Psmith
2,542
The Sun Also Rises
2,305
Persuasion
2,865
08001,6002,4003,200
words; the ink tick marks each brief’s maximum

Seven of nine items landed inside their brief’s word range. The Moonstone and Persuasion ran over by 77 and 265 words respectively.


§ IV

Worst Flaws, as Recorded

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

The opening leans on near-verbatim borrowing from Wells's actual next chapter ("Then came the night of the first falling star. It was seen early in the morning, rushing over Winchester eastward, a line of flame high in the atmosphere"), so the chapter's strongest lines are partly transcription rather than invention.

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

Small uncorrected slips of fact and phrasing — the McTodd lunch shunted to 'to-morrow' when the established timeline puts it that very day, the garbled 'nephew of his uncle's fish business', and the anachronistic Capistrano allusion — blemish an otherwise convincing pastiche.

on Leave It to Psmith, item 022 · Fable 5

The library scene depends on the contrivance of Betteredge happening to overhear my lady's one crucial speech while pouring two cups of tea — a seam he has to lampshade directly (\"in the way of my duty, and not in the way of a listener\") to get the required beat witnessed.

on The Moonstone, item 011 · Fable 5

Robert's remark about Edna is uncharacteristically literary for the teasing clerk of the source — it reads as the narrator's metaphor put in his mouth, a slip the chapter half-admits by twice having Adèle say he \"talked like a book.\"

on The Awakening, item 016 · Fable 5

§ V

The Mechanical Docket

Automated screening results across the nine outputs.