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

The Standings → Muse Spark 1.3 (high)

Live run data

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Muse Spark 1.3 (high)

high reasoning effort · via OpenCode 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 xhigh0.60 medium0.60

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

Headline 0.576 compliance × craft
Compliance 0.928 of 1.0
Craft 0.617 of 1.0

The record: 10 items · 30 verdicts · 0 errors · 2,642 words on average · est. generation cost $0.47

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
3.70
Prose
3.43
Character
3.33
Scene
3.57
Integration
3.33
Momentum
3.43
12345
craft mark, 1–5; bars begin at the scale’s floor of 1

Voice is the strongest dimension (3.70); character the weakest (3.33). 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
Red Harvest
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The War of the Worlds
The Awakening
Persuasion
The Moonstone
Dracula
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 Secret Garden item 013 · after ch. 2 · Frances Hodgson Burnett 0.760.750.750.792,526
Red Harvest item 023 · after ch. 2 · Dashiell Hammett 0.710.750.750.622,201
The Mysterious Affair at Styles item 017 · after ch. 3 · Agatha Christie 0.590.590.750.442,756
The War of the Worlds item 006 · after ch. 1 · H. G. Wells 0.570.630.470.603,291
The Awakening item 016 · after ch. 7 · Kate Chopin 0.570.590.710.392,088
Persuasion item 001 · after ch. 1 · Jane Austen 0.550.540.710.402,619
The Moonstone item 011 · after ch. 8 · Wilkie Collins 0.540.710.470.423,054
Dracula item 015 · after ch. 5 · Bram Stoker 0.530.570.640.402,398
Leave It to Psmith item 022 · after ch. 3 · P. G. Wodehouse 0.490.530.590.353,279
The Sun Also Rises item 021 · after ch. 3 · Ernest Hemingway 0.440.590.400.342,205

  The widest judge split in the run: Gemini 3.7 Flash 0.71 against GPT-5.6 Sol 0.39 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 Secret Garden
2,526
Red Harvest
2,201
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
2,756
The War of the Worlds
3,291
The Awakening
2,088
Persuasion
2,619
The Moonstone
3,054
Dracula
2,398
Leave It to Psmith
3,279
The Sun Also Rises
2,205
01,0002,0003,0004,000
words; the ink tick marks each brief’s maximum

Four of ten items landed inside their brief’s word range. The Secret Garden and The War of the Worlds and The Awakening and Persuasion and The Moonstone and Leave It to Psmith ran over by 126 and 691 and 288 and 19 and 254 and 479 words respectively.


§ IV

Worst Flaws, as Recorded

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

The chapter's chronology collapses under inspection: Arthur's proposal drifts across three different dates against the source's fixed 24 May, and Jonathan is placed in Buda-Pesth and then London while his journal has him imprisoned in the castle through 30 June, so the climactic telegram lands as contradiction rather than twist.

on Dracula, item 015 · Fable 5

The moor stop is visibly engineered to serve the brief: a nine-year-old in mourning slips out of her guardian's carriage into a dark, windy moor at night and neither Mr. Craven nor the adults meaningfully react ('Mr. Craven said nothing. He did not turn his head.'), which strains plausibility even for these cold characters.

on The Secret Garden, item 013 · Fable 5

The chapter renders almost everything in indirect summary with barely a line of direct speech, and at the required beats it lifts the brief's own wording nearly verbatim (\"spoke aloud, and in company\", \"still entirely unsettled\"), so the mandated moments read as announced checklist items rather than dramatized scenes.

on Persuasion, item 001 · Fable 5

The chapter tells the same information three times over — in the scenes, in the Op's explanatory summaries (\"she was scared and... she lied badly\"), and again verbatim in the wire — so its middle stretch recaps rather than advances, and the interiority spells out inferences Hammett's Op would leave to the reader.

on Red Harvest, item 023 · Fable 5

§ V

The Mechanical Docket

Automated screening results across the ten outputs.