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

The Standings → GPT‑5.6 Luna

Live run data

OpenAI

GPT‑5.6 Luna

medium reasoning effort · via Codex CLI · judged by Fable 5 and Gemini 3.7 Flash and GPT-5.6 Sol

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

Headline 0.520 compliance × craft
Compliance 0.917 of 1.0
Craft 0.564 of 1.0

The record: 10 items · 30 verdicts · 0 errors · 2,583 words on average · est. generation cost $0.08

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
3.37
Prose
3.33
Character
3.00
Scene
3.37
Integration
3.10
Momentum
3.37
12345
craft mark, 1–5; bars begin at the scale’s floor of 1

Voice is the strongest dimension (3.37); character the weakest (3.00). 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 War of the Worlds
Dracula
The Awakening
The Secret Garden
Persuasion
The Moonstone
Red Harvest
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Leave It to Psmith
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
The War of the Worlds item 006 · after ch. 1 · H. G. Wells 0.690.630.750.672,270
Dracula item 015 · after ch. 5 · Bram Stoker 0.640.680.710.532,538
The Awakening item 016 · after ch. 7 · Kate Chopin 0.600.630.750.421,901
The Secret Garden item 013 · after ch. 2 · Frances Hodgson Burnett 0.560.710.550.422,699
Persuasion item 001 · after ch. 1 · Jane Austen 0.560.600.640.453,018
The Moonstone item 011 · after ch. 8 · Wilkie Collins 0.540.590.540.472,789
Red Harvest item 023 · after ch. 2 · Dashiell Hammett 0.450.510.440.392,365
The Mysterious Affair at Styles item 017 · after ch. 3 · Agatha Christie 0.430.460.420.412,457
Leave It to Psmith item 022 · after ch. 3 · P. G. Wodehouse 0.410.530.410.293,209
The Sun Also Rises item 021 · after ch. 3 · Ernest Hemingway 0.330.470.230.282,588

  The widest judge split in the run: Gemini 3.7 Flash 0.75 against GPT-5.6 Sol 0.42 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
The War of the Worlds
2,270
Dracula
2,538
The Awakening
1,901
The Secret Garden
2,699
Persuasion
3,018
The Moonstone
2,789
Red Harvest
2,365
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
2,457
Leave It to Psmith
3,209
The Sun Also Rises
2,588
01,0002,0003,0004,000
words; the ink tick marks each brief’s maximum

Six of ten items landed inside their brief’s word range. The Awakening and The Secret Garden and Persuasion and Leave It to Psmith ran over by 101 and 299 and 418 and 409 words respectively.


§ IV

Worst Flaws, as Recorded

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

The anonymous letter is a transparent authorial device — it literally instructs Franklin to do what the brief requires (\"be careful to keep any parcel, box, or packet entrusted to you in a secure place\"), so the chapter's central mystery reads as machinery for delivering the mandated beats rather than a development arising from the story.

on The Moonstone, item 011 · Fable 5

The chapter suffers from severe continuity blunders, most notably treating the connecting door that was smashed open in the previous chapter as intact and locked by the doctors, and establishing an impossible timeline where Poirot is told of the doctors' suspicions at 5:05 AM before the doctors had even conferred.

on The Mysterious Affair at Styles, item 017 · Gemini 3.7 Flash

The near-unbroken pages of monosyllabic stichomythia push Hemingway's understatement into parody and let characters — Georgette above all (\"You are in love with the beautiful girl.\" \"Yes.\" \"And she does not love you.\" \"Yes.\") — state the novel's subtext outright instead of leaving it under the surface.

on The Sun Also Rises, item 021 · Fable 5

Lady Russell never actually lays a retrenchment plan of her own before Sir Walter — she only tells him Shepherd has 'not proposed enough' — yet the chapter later claims 'Lady Russell's plan had been rejected', leaving a required beat half-delivered and the narration contradicting the scene it summarizes.

on Persuasion, item 001 · Fable 5

§ V

The Mechanical Docket

Automated screening results across the ten outputs.