The Standings → Muse Spark 1.3 (xhigh)
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xhigh reasoning effort · via OpenCode CLI · judged by Claude Sonnet 5 · not the setting shown on the standings; also run at medium60.1 high59.2
Results from run ‘first’: ten items, ten verdicts.
Muse Spark 1.3 (xhigh) scores 61 on craft, 2 points below the field’s 63 and 32 points short of the authors themselves. Its shape differs from the field’s: relatively strong on the author’s voice and restraint, relatively weak on momentum and building scenes. On the mechanical checks it kept to the brief’s word range on 4 of 10 items.
The record: 10 items · 10 verdicts · 0 errors · 2,656 words on average · est. generation cost $0.59
Eight dimensions, each 0–100, averaged over ten items; the author’s real chapter was in the room every time.
Craft by dimension, 0–100 · judged by Sonnet 5 beside the author’s real chapter
The authors themselves average 93 on the five writing dimensions, the field 63, this model 61. Hover or focus a bar for the field and the authors on that dimension.
The judge’s one-sentence best quality and worst flaw for each chapter, written for a general reader.
Best The old servant's brief, unforced kindness to Mary makes her coldness land harder without the story having to point it out.
Worst It sometimes stops to explain what Mary is feeling instead of just showing it through what she does.
Best It works in a lot of satisfying callbacks to the source chapter — the bicycle, the papers on moral progress, Markham's photograph — that make it feel stitched tightly to what came before.
Worst It gives the narrator the name "Smith" and has a leftover typo ("show youExtra-terrestrial"), both of which break the illusion that this is the same anonymous narrator writing carefully six years later.
Best The umbrella-for-cash negotiation between Psmith and Walderwick is a clean, readable comic set piece with a believable practical motive (Walderwick's racing losses).
Worst Eve fails to recognize the name Ralston McTodd even though the previous chapter established she already knows he abandoned her close friend Cynthia, which breaks her character and wastes the story's own setup.
Best It hits every required plot point cleanly and the servant's flat contradiction of Inglethorp ('the latch-key, sir, is hanging now upon its hook') lands with quiet, convincing force.
Worst A big stretch of Poirot's investigation is just told as a list of things he did ('He looked into... He paced... He stood long...') instead of being shown as a scene, so the middle of the chapter goes flat.
Best The telegram is written in believably clipped, formal period language that feels like an actual 1899 wire rather than a modern paraphrase.
Worst The chapter tells the reader what to feel instead of showing it, going so far as to have Edna's private thought echo the novel's own opening sentence almost word for word ('inward life, which questions, and not... the outward existence which conforms'), which spells out the theme instead of trusting the scene.
Best The unprompted Renfield question about Miss Westenra is genuinely eerie precisely because it is left unexplained.
Worst The men's letters all sound alike and the closing telegram resolves the suspense so neatly and quickly that it drains rather than builds tension.
Best It's told in a warm, unhurried Betteredge voice with nice concrete touches, like correctly naming Rosanna's friend 'Limping Lucy' and the fussy detail of the aunt's letter about the cold game dinner.
Worst The letter that supposedly makes Franklin rush home turns out to be about carriage arrangements for a shopping trip, so his urgent four-hour dash never feels earned, and the chapter later has Miss Rachel serving as hostess at dinner right after flatly stating she never came down that day.
Best It hits every required story point cleanly and in a logical order, with a well-organized bank interview and a full, easy-to-follow telegram at the end.
Worst Some lines get too emotional or explain their own meaning out loud, like the widow swearing on her mother's grave or the narrator spelling out why Thaler's warning matters, which is more soap opera than the flat, tight-lipped style of the original.
Best The two retrenchment plans are worked out with real financial plausibility (selling a meadow, felling timber, fixed household allowances), showing genuine thought about period estate management.
Worst It tells the reader what people feel (mortification, relief, astonishment) instead of dramatizing it, and it drops in a character, Mrs Clay, who has never been introduced in this story, which will confuse readers.
Best The closing walk along the river at dawn is visually clear and calm, giving the chapter a quiet, believable close.
Worst The ending contradicts itself: Jake sends the taxi away empty after Brett goes inside, but the final sentence describes 'the taxi carrying Brett' still driving off behind him, which doesn't make sense.
Headline, compliance and craft for each chapter, 0–100.
| Item | Headline | Compliance | Craft | Words |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Secret Garden item 013 · after ch. 2 · Frances Hodgson Burnett | 74.0 | 100 | 74 | 2,721 |
| The War of the Worlds item 006 · after ch. 1 · H. G. Wells | 69.7 | 95 | 73 | 2,660 |
| Leave It to Psmith item 022 · after ch. 3 · P. G. Wodehouse | 59.1 | 95 | 62 | 3,167 |
| The Mysterious Affair at Styles item 017 · after ch. 3 · Agatha Christie | 57.7 | 95 | 61 | 2,406 |
| The Awakening item 016 · after ch. 7 · Kate Chopin | 55.7 | 95 | 59 | 2,795 |
| Dracula item 015 · after ch. 5 · Bram Stoker | 55.2 | 100 | 55 | 2,241 |
| The Moonstone item 011 · after ch. 8 · Wilkie Collins | 54.3 | 90 | 60 | 3,076 |
| Red Harvest item 023 · after ch. 2 · Dashiell Hammett | 54.1 | 100 | 54 | 2,271 |
| Persuasion item 001 · after ch. 1 · Jane Austen | 53.8 | 95 | 57 | 2,905 |
| The Sun Also Rises item 021 · after ch. 3 · Ernest Hemingway | 49.3 | 90 | 55 | 2,314 |
Words written per item, against each brief’s maximum.
Word count per item vs. brief maximum · run ‘first’
Four of ten items landed inside their brief’s word range. The Secret Garden and The War of the Worlds and Leave It to Psmith and The Awakening and The Moonstone and Persuasion ran over by 321 and 60 and 367 and 995 and 276 and 305 words respectively.
Each verdict names the chapter’s single worst flaw, with evidence. Quoted verbatim from run ‘first’.
The chapter tells the reader what to feel instead of showing it, going so far as to have Edna's private thought echo the novel's own opening sentence almost word for word ('inward life, which questions, and not... the outward existence which conforms'), which spells out the theme instead of trusting the scene.
The letter that supposedly makes Franklin rush home turns out to be about carriage arrangements for a shopping trip, so his urgent four-hour dash never feels earned, and the chapter later has Miss Rachel serving as hostess at dinner right after flatly stating she never came down that day.
Some lines get too emotional or explain their own meaning out loud, like the widow swearing on her mother's grave or the narrator spelling out why Thaler's warning matters, which is more soap opera than the flat, tight-lipped style of the original.
It tells the reader what people feel (mortification, relief, astonishment) instead of dramatizing it, and it drops in a character, Mrs Clay, who has never been introduced in this story, which will confuse readers.
Automated screening results across the ten outputs.