The Standings → Claude Sonnet 5 (medium)
Anthropic
medium reasoning effort · via Claude CLI · judged by Claude Sonnet 5 · not the setting shown on the standings; also run at high60.8 xhigh60.4 low55.9
Results from run ‘first’: ten items, ten verdicts.
Claude Sonnet 5 (medium) scores 64 on craft, level with the field’s 63 and 29 points short of the authors themselves. Its shape differs from the field’s: relatively strong on the author’s voice and sentence-level prose, relatively weak on restraint and folding the brief into the story. On the mechanical checks it kept to the brief’s word range on 7 of 10 items, reproduced a 29-word run of the real book verbatim and leans on stock phrases more than most.
The record: 10 items · 10 verdicts · 0 errors · 2,026 words on average · est. generation cost $0.36
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 64. 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 It populates the crowd with believable, specific onlookers -- a butcher's boy, golfers, a platelayer -- which makes the common feel like a real place on an ordinary morning.
Worst The writing repeats a confusing, seemingly wrong phrase ('the send road') and often explains what Ogilvy is feeling instead of just showing it through his actions and words.
Best Some sentence-level touches are genuinely funny and well turned, like describing Walderwick as "a large young man with a face like a genial ham" and the closing aphorism that "virtue, even when practised at another man's expense, does not go unrewarded."
Worst The library interview is conducted by Lady Constance in a London flat, but the earlier chapters state plainly that it is Lord Emsworth, not Constance, who is in London to interview Miss Halliday.
Best The moment where Betteredge pointedly notes that neither he nor Franklin ever actually glimpsed the diamond itself is a careful, well-judged touch that keeps the danger implied rather than shown.
Worst It never puts Betteredge back in his beehive chair at the end as the scene requires, closing instead in an unspecified 'snug little room,' and it never accounts for where Miss Rachel has gone after Lady Verinder returns alone.
Best The moment when the carriage stops for a fallen branch and Mary steps out alone into the huge dark moor is a nicely observed, quiet bit of atmosphere.
Worst It has Mary hear a sound that 'seemed almost to be crying' and then say out loud 'I heard something crying,' which is exactly the thing the brief said must not appear on the page, even as a denial.
Best The chapter is clear and well organized, hitting every required story point in a way that's easy to follow.
Worst Elizabeth's sudden agreement with Anne is announced rather than earned, so it feels convenient instead of believable.
Best The unsigned warning note, delivered by an unseen man from Thaler's car, is a quiet, in-character way to make Whisper menacing without ever putting him on the page.
Worst The widow's confession comes out as one long, articulate, self-aware speech, which feels more like a modern therapy-session monologue than a guarded, evasive Hammett character protecting herself.
Best The bar conversation between Jake and Brett has a believable, wounded push-and-pull rhythm, especially the exchange about Michael and Biarritz.
Worst The narrator keeps stopping to spell out exactly what people are feeling and why ("which was that I would have minded very much, and that there was no way on earth I could tell her so"), which is the opposite of the clipped, show-don't-tell style the source material uses.
Best The moment where Renfield calmly asks, out of nowhere, whether Miss Westenra is beautiful is genuinely unsettling and well observed.
Worst The closing telegram says Jonathan is already married, which makes no sense given he's engaged to Mina and reads as a plot hole rather than a surprise.
Best It hits every required plot point in a clear, easy-to-follow order, so the chapter is never confusing about what is happening.
Worst The same idea (Robert calling Edna a puzzle whose eyes he can't read) is repeated almost word-for-word three separate times, which makes the writing feel repetitive rather than developed.
Best The contradiction of Alfred's alibi by Dorcas (relaying Annie's word about the locked outhouse) is clean, plausible, and lands exactly where it should.
Worst Poirot and then Alfred Inglethorp both turn up right at the moment the plot needs them, so the chapter feels arranged rather than lived-in.
Headline, compliance and craft for each chapter, 0–100.
| Item | Headline | Compliance | Craft | Words |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The War of the Worlds item 006 · after ch. 1 · H. G. Wells | 68.6 | 100 | 69 | 2,136 |
| Leave It to Psmith item 022 · after ch. 3 · P. G. Wodehouse | 66.0 | 95 | 70 | 2,758 |
| The Moonstone item 011 · after ch. 8 · Wilkie Collins | 63.2 | 90 | 70 | 2,618 |
| The Secret Garden item 013 · after ch. 2 · Frances Hodgson Burnett | 62.3 | 95 | 66 | 2,115 |
| Persuasion item 001 · after ch. 1 · Jane Austen | 61.5 | 100 | 62 | 1,968 |
| Red Harvest item 023 · after ch. 2 · Dashiell Hammett | 59.1 | 100 | 59 | 1,793 |
| The Sun Also Rises item 021 · after ch. 3 · Ernest Hemingway | 57.6 | 95 | 61 | 1,683 |
| Dracula item 015 · after ch. 5 · Bram Stoker | 57.0 | 85 | 67 | 1,610 |
| The Awakening item 016 · after ch. 7 · Kate Chopin | 54.1 | 95 | 57 | 1,484 |
| The Mysterious Affair at Styles item 017 · after ch. 3 · Agatha Christie | 50.8 | 90 | 56 | 2,097 |
Words written per item, against each brief’s maximum.
Word count per item vs. brief maximum · run ‘first’
Seven of ten items landed inside their brief’s word range.
Each verdict names the chapter’s single worst flaw, with evidence. Quoted verbatim from run ‘first’.
The narrator keeps stopping to spell out exactly what people are feeling and why ("which was that I would have minded very much, and that there was no way on earth I could tell her so"), which is the opposite of the clipped, show-don't-tell style the source material uses.
It never puts Betteredge back in his beehive chair at the end as the scene requires, closing instead in an unspecified 'snug little room,' and it never accounts for where Miss Rachel has gone after Lady Verinder returns alone.
It has Mary hear a sound that 'seemed almost to be crying' and then say out loud 'I heard something crying,' which is exactly the thing the brief said must not appear on the page, even as a denial.
The library interview is conducted by Lady Constance in a London flat, but the earlier chapters state plainly that it is Lord Emsworth, not Constance, who is in London to interview Miss Halliday.
Automated screening results across the ten outputs.