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

The Standings → Fable 5.1 (medium)

Live run data

Anthropic

Fable 5.1 (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 xhigh0.82 high0.77 low0.76

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

Headline 0.752 compliance × craft
Compliance 0.970 of 1.0
Craft 0.775 of 1.0

The record: 10 items · 30 verdicts · 0 errors · 2,552 words on average · est. generation cost $2.78

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
4.17
Prose
4.17
Character
4.00
Scene
4.10
Integration
4.23
Momentum
3.93
12345
craft mark, 1–5; bars begin at the scale’s floor of 1

Integration is the strongest dimension (4.23); momentum the weakest (3.93). 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 Secret Garden
Dracula
The Awakening
The War of the Worlds
Persuasion
Red Harvest
The Moonstone
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Sun Also Rises
Leave It to Psmith
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
The Secret Garden item 013 · after ch. 2 · Frances Hodgson Burnett 0.850.791.000.752,422
Dracula item 015 · after ch. 5 · Bram Stoker 0.830.790.960.752,152
The Awakening item 016 · after ch. 7 · Kate Chopin 0.790.710.920.751,865
The War of the Worlds item 006 · after ch. 1 · H. G. Wells 0.750.680.920.672,594
Persuasion item 001 · after ch. 1 · Jane Austen 0.740.710.790.713,074
Red Harvest item 023 · after ch. 2 · Dashiell Hammett 0.720.750.750.672,557
The Moonstone item 011 · after ch. 8 · Wilkie Collins 0.710.710.750.682,899
The Mysterious Affair at Styles item 017 · after ch. 3 · Agatha Christie 0.710.750.750.632,635
The Sun Also Rises item 021 · after ch. 3 · Ernest Hemingway 0.710.750.750.622,238
Leave It to Psmith item 022 · after ch. 3 · P. G. Wodehouse 0.700.710.710.673,089

  The widest judge split in the run: Gemini 3.7 Flash 1.00 against GPT-5.6 Sol 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
The Secret Garden
2,422
Dracula
2,152
The Awakening
1,865
The War of the Worlds
2,594
Persuasion
3,074
Red Harvest
2,557
The Moonstone
2,899
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
2,635
The Sun Also Rises
2,238
Leave It to Psmith
3,089
08001,6002,4003,200
words; the ink tick marks each brief’s maximum

Five of ten items landed inside their brief’s word range. The Secret Garden and The Awakening and Persuasion and The Moonstone and Leave It to Psmith ran over by 22 and 65 and 474 and 99 and 289 words respectively.


§ IV

Worst Flaws, as Recorded

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

The Bistritz letter's \"gentleman who lives in the mountains beyond the Pass\" and the message \"not in his hand\" press as close as the prohibition allows to hinting at the Count, so the chapter's dread depends on the reader's outside knowledge rather than anything it earns on its own page.

on Dracula, item 015 · Fable 5

A handful of self-consciously literary flourishes — \"like a face at the bottom of a well,\" \"breathed at her in the dark like a kettle,\" \"something that did not know what it was itself\" — are more knowing than Burnett's plain narratorial style and briefly break the pastiche.

on The Secret Garden, item 013 · Fable 5

The mandated plain statement of feeling is over-signposted — "we had been not saying it since the Napolitain, and it was the same thing we had not been saying for two years" narrates the subtext outright, briefly breaking the iceberg restraint the rest of the chapter sustains.

on The Sun Also Rises, item 021 · Fable 5

In an otherwise meticulous period pastiche, the invented London letter is the weak joint — an anachronistic King's Cross departure in 1848 and a slightly too-convenient solicitor's warning that exists mainly to deliver the brief's required exposition.

on The Moonstone, item 011 · Fable 5

§ V

The Mechanical Docket

Automated screening results across the ten outputs.