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

The Standings → GPT‑5.6 Terra

Live run data

OpenAI

GPT‑5.6 Terra

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 0.592 compliance × craft
Compliance 0.848 of 1.0
Craft 0.626 of 1.0

The record: 10 items · 30 verdicts · 0 errors · 2,164 words on average · est. generation cost $0.74

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
3.57
Prose
3.53
Character
3.40
Scene
3.57
Integration
3.50
Momentum
3.47
12345
craft mark, 1–5; bars begin at the scale’s floor of 1

Voice is the strongest dimension (3.57); character the weakest (3.40). 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
Persuasion
The Moonstone
The War of the Worlds
The Secret Garden
Red Harvest
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Leave It to Psmith
Dracula
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 Awakening item 016 · after ch. 7 · Kate Chopin 0.720.710.790.671,822
Persuasion item 001 · after ch. 1 · Jane Austen 0.710.670.750.712,905
The Moonstone item 011 · after ch. 8 · Wilkie Collins 0.700.670.710.712,578
The War of the Worlds item 006 · after ch. 1 · H. G. Wells 0.690.670.710.672,591
The Secret Garden item 013 · after ch. 2 · Frances Hodgson Burnett 0.690.710.750.592,517
Red Harvest item 023 · after ch. 2 · Dashiell Hammett 0.640.670.750.502,123
The Mysterious Affair at Styles item 017 · after ch. 3 · Agatha Christie 0.640.630.750.532,152
Leave It to Psmith item 022 · after ch. 3 · P. G. Wodehouse 0.600.640.530.642,636
Dracula item 015 · after ch. 5 · Bram Stoker 0.530.530.640.432,284
The Sun Also Rises item 021 · after ch. 3 · Ernest Hemingway 0.000.000.000.0028

  The widest judge split in the run: Gemini 3.7 Flash 0.75 against GPT-5.6 Sol 0.50 on Red Harvest (item 023).


§ 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
1,822
Persuasion
2,905
The Moonstone
2,578
The War of the Worlds
2,591
The Secret Garden
2,517
Red Harvest
2,123
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
2,152
Leave It to Psmith
2,636
Dracula
2,284
The Sun Also Rises
28
08001,6002,4003,200
words; the ink tick marks each brief’s maximum

Six of ten items landed inside their brief’s word range. The Awakening and Persuasion and The Secret Garden ran over by 22 and 305 and 117 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 biggest event — the reclusive Mr. Craven, who Mrs. Medlock said Mary needn't expect to see, personally meeting the train — is left inert: he says \"So\" and vanishes, and neither Mary's reflection nor Mrs. Medlock's terse reaction registers how extraordinary his presence is, wasting the scene's dramatic charge.

on The Secret Garden, item 013 · Fable 5

By importing the novel's actual 12 August Budapest letter, the candidate forces a silent three-month time-jump that both strands the required Morris dinner as an awkwardly bolted-on August retrospective and pushes the Renfield scene into forbidden supernatural hinting (\"From no one that you would believe in\").

on Dracula, item 015 · Fable 5

The required closing image is fumbled: Mike Jackson is on stage at the end — so Psmith is not alone — and Mike's convenient evening appearance at the Drones, paired with Psmith's unexplained knowledge that Eve had been at the Jacksons' house, is a visible contrivance for delivering her name.

on Leave It to Psmith, item 022 · Fable 5

The plot machinery is conveniently unexplained — an invented, barely characterized cousin sends Franklin a sealed packet nobody can account for, and my lady's parallel \"I had a letter too\" makes the required prohibition arrive by authorial fiat rather than dramatic necessity.

on The Moonstone, item 011 · Fable 5

§ V

The Mechanical Docket

Automated screening results across the ten outputs.