Run: 2026-05-31-01KSYXAYT39GVR2NK5YM3CX362

Run Details

Model:: Claude Opus 4.8 (Reasoning, High)
Test:: Bad Writing Habits
Scenario:: Fantasy: entering an ancient ruin
Duration:: 47.2s
Cost:: $0.074025
Provider:: Anthropic

Evaluation summary

Score	Evaluator	Details Link
100.00%	Adverbs in dialogue tags	(details)
72.30%	AI-ism adverb frequency	(details)
100.00%	AI-ism character names	(details)
100.00%	AI-ism location names	(details)
63.07%	AI-ism word frequency	(details)
100.00%	Cliché density	(details)
100.00%	Emotion telling (show vs. tell)	(details)
100.00%	Filter word density	(details)
100.00%	Gibberish response detection	(details)
100.00%	Markdown formatting overuse	(details)
100.00%	Missing dialogue indicators (quotation marks)	(details)
100.00%	Name drop frequency	(details)
93.18%	Narrator intent-glossing	(details)
100.00%	"Not X but Y" pattern overuse	(details)
100.00%	Overuse of "that" (subordinate clause padding)	(details)
100.00%	Paragraph length variance	(details)
100.00%	Passive voice overuse	(details)
100.00%	Past progressive (was/were + -ing) overuse	(details)
0.00%	Em-dash & semicolon overuse	(details)
81.12%	Purple prose (modifier overload)	(details)
100.00%	Repeated phrase echo	(details)
100.00%	Sentence length variance	(details)
57.58%	Sentence opener variety	(details)
0.00%	Adverb-first sentence starts	(details)
89.09%	Pronoun-first sentence starts	(details)
60.00%	Subject-first sentence starts	(details)
100.00%	Subordinate conjunction sentence starts	(details)
12.99%	Technical jargon density	(details)
100.00%	Useless dialogue additions	(details)
13.64%	Dialogue tag variety (said vs. fancy)	(details)
81.4319%	Overall

Model input

System

You are an expert novelist with a gift for vivid, immersive prose. You write in tight third-person limited point of view with a strong narrative voice. Your prose is clean, precise, and engaging — you favor strong verbs, concrete details, and natural-sounding dialogue.

You will be given a story bible (codex) containing canonical details about characters, locations, items, and lore. Use these details to ground your writing in the established world. Stay consistent with the codex.

Write only the prose of the scene. Do not include titles, chapter headings, markdown formatting, or any commentary before or after the scene.

User/Human

<codex>
<character id="4412" name="Aurora Carter" aliases="Rory, Laila, Aurora, Carter, Malphora" pronouns="she/her" species="Human" storyRole="Protagonist">
  <eyeColor>bright blue</eyeColor>
  <hair>straight shoulder-length black</hair>
  <height>5'6"</height>
  <age>25</age>
  <scar>small crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist from a childhood accident</scar>
  <description>Aurora, referred to by her friends as Rory, is cool-headed, intelligent, and known for quick out-of-the-box thinking.</description>
  <backstory>Born in Cardiff to an Irish barrister father (Brendan Carter) and Welsh teacher mother (Jennifer Carter née Ellis), Rory reluctantly pursued Pre-Law at Cardiff University. She fled to London at the behest of her childhood friend Eva after leaving an abusive ex named Evan. By day, Rory works part-time as a delivery person for Yu-Fei Cheung's Golden Empress restaurant. She lives in a flat above Silas' bar.</backstory>
</character>

<character id="4418" name="Nyx" aliases="Nyx, the Shadow, Nightwhisper" pronouns="they/them" species="Shade" storyRole="Wild Card">
  <eyeColor>faintly glowing violet</eyeColor>
  <height>approximately 6'2" in solid form</height>
  <age>ageless</age>
  <form>humanoid silhouette of living shadow, can shift between solid and incorporeal</form>
  <voice>sounds like a whisper carried on the wind</voice>
  <description>A being of living shadow, existing between the mortal plane and the spaces between realms.</description>
  <backstory>Nyx was once a human sorcerer named Aldric who became trapped between realms during a failed summoning ritual in 1643. They now exist as a Shade, bound to the mortal plane but able to slip between shadows.</backstory>
</character>

<character id="4424" name="Isolde Varga" aliases="Isolde, the Seer" pronouns="she/her" species="Half-Fae" storyRole="Oracle">
  <eyeColor>pale lavender</eyeColor>
  <hair>silver, reaching her waist</hair>
  <height>5'5"</height>
  <age>300 years old</age>
  <appearance>ethereal, ageless</appearance>
  <speech>speaks in riddles</speech>
  <footprints>leaves no footprints when she walks</footprints>
  <compulsion>cannot lie (Fae compulsion) but can mislead</compulsion>
  <description>A Half-Fae seer exiled from the Fae Courts for sharing visions with mortals.</description>
  <backstory>She now lives in a hidden grove in Richmond Park, offering cryptic prophecies to those who seek her out.</backstory>
</character>

<location id="853" name="Dymas (Gluttony)" aliases="Dymas, gluttony, Dymasian" realm="Hel" sin="Gluttony">
  <ruler>Prince Belphegor</ruler>
  <skyColor>warm amber</skyColor>
  <description>A place of excess and indulgence. Sprawling vineyards, orchards, and gardens provide exotic ingredients for master chefs — often helbound souls contracted from Earth. Grand feasts and culinary competitions are common.</description>
</location>

<location id="861" name="The Fae Grove" aliases="Isolde's grove, Richmond grove, the Grove" realm="Earth (Fae-touched)">
  <parkLocation>Richmond Park</parkLocation>
  <standingStones>ancient oak standing stones mark the boundary</standingStones>
  <timeBehavior>time moves differently — an hour inside can be minutes or days outside</timeBehavior>
  <flora>wildflowers bloom year-round</flora>
  <description>A hidden clearing that exists in a pocket between Earth and the Fae realm.</description>
</location>

<item id="2001" name="Heartstone Pendant" aliases="the pendant, Heartstone" type="Artifact" origin="Dymas">
  <gemstoneColor>deep crimson</gemstoneColor>
  <chainMaterial>silver chain</chainMaterial>
  <size>roughly the size of a thumbnail</size>
  <behavior>pulses faintly with warmth when near a Hel portal</behavior>
  <glow>faint inner glow</glow>
  <description>Given to Aurora by an unknown benefactor.</description>
</item>

<item id="2006" name="Fae-Forged Blade" aliases="the Fae blade, Isolde's gift" type="Weapon" origin="The Fae Courts">
  <material>moonsilver</material>
  <shape>slender, leaf-shaped dagger</shape>
  <temperature>always cold to the touch</temperature>
  <glow>faintly luminescent in moonlight</glow>
  <power>can cut through magical wards; particularly effective against demons</power>
  <givenTo>given to Aurora by Isolde as a gift</givenTo>
  <description>A weapon of the Fae Courts, rare and highly coveted.</description>
</item>

<lore id="7001" name="The Veil" aliases="the Veil, the Barrier, the Boundary" category="Cosmology">
  <solsticeEffect>weakens during the winter solstice, strengthens during the summer solstice</solsticeEffect>
  <appearance>faint shimmering distortion visible only to those with supernatural sight</appearance>
  <monitoring>rift points (tears in the Veil) are monitored by the Wardens</monitoring>
  <description>The Veil is the metaphysical barrier separating Earth from Hel and the Fae Realms.</description>
</lore>
</codex>

Write a fully fleshed out scene of at least 1000 words in the fantasy genre.

A small group enters an ancient, otherworldly place for the first time. The environment is alien and wondrous. Describe their exploration — what they see, hear, and feel as they move deeper. Include moments of discovery, unease, and wonder. Let the world-building emerge through the characters' experience rather than exposition.

Use the codex entries above as your world reference for characters, setting, and lore.
Only include the prose of the scene without any markdown or commentary.

Model response

The standing stones rose out of the bracken like the ribs of something long dead—ancient oaks, but wrong, their bark grown over and fossilized into a grey that wasn't quite stone and wasn't quite wood. Aurora stopped at the threshold between two of them, where the autumn dusk of Richmond Park ended in a clean, impossible line.

Beyond that line, it was spring.

"You feel that," Nyx said. Not a question. Their voice came as it always did, a whisper threaded into the air beside her ear, intimate and disembodied at once. In the failing light they were little more than a darkening of the dark, a column of shadow that the dusk seemed to flow around rather than through.

"The temperature," Aurora said. The cold of the October evening pressed at her back, but warmth breathed out from between the stones, soft and green-smelling, the way the world smelled after rain in May. "Where's it coming from?"

"From everywhere. From nowhere." A pause. "From a different year, perhaps."

She drew the pendant out from beneath her collar without thinking, the habit of three weeks now. The Heartstone lay cool against her palm, its deep crimson dimmed, its faint inner glow steady and unbothered. Not a Hel portal, then. Whatever lay past the stones, it didn't want anything to do with Hel.

She stepped through.

The change came over her like wading into bathwater. Her ears popped. The traffic-hum of London—so constant she'd long stopped hearing it—simply ceased, sheared off mid-breath, and into the silence rushed birdsong she didn't recognize, liquid and rising and falling in patterns that felt almost like speech. The grass beneath her boots was springy and absurdly green, jeweled with wildflowers that had no business blooming together: bluebells beside foxgloves beside little white star-shaped things that turned, very slightly, to follow her as she passed.

"Don't pick anything," Nyx murmured, pouring through the gap behind her. The shadow elongated, found a patch of dimness beneath an overhanging branch, and resolved—slowly, almost reluctantly—into something more solid. A tall figure, six feet and more, edges still smoking faintly at the shoulders. Their eyes were the only true color they owned: that faint violet glow, fixed on the clearing ahead with an expression she couldn't read. "Don't eat anything. Don't promise anything. And if anyone offers you a name, don't take it."

"You've been here before."

"No." The word came out strange. "But I remember places like it. From before."

Before. The word they used for the four hundred years they didn't talk about. Aurora let it lie.

They went on, deeper, and the grove opened around them like a held breath let go. The trees here were the real thing, oaks vast enough that six people couldn't have ringed their trunks, but the light that fell through their canopy was the wrong gold—too thick, too slow, settling on her arms like warm honey, like it had weight. Motes drifted in it that she first took for dust and then for insects and then for neither; they pulsed with their own faint light, swimming up from the flowers in lazy spirals, and where they touched her skin she felt a small sweet shock, like static, like a memory she couldn't catch.

"It's beautiful," she said, and hated how small her voice sounded.

"Yes," Nyx agreed. "That's the danger of it."

She glanced back the way they'd come. The standing stones were still there, but the gap between them had narrowed, and the cold gray sliver of London beyond looked further away than a dozen steps could account for. She thought of the warning Eva had relayed, third-hand and laughing, not really believing: *an hour in the Grove can be a minute outside, or a week.* Her stomach tightened. She'd told no one she was coming. If a week passed—

"Stay with me," Nyx said, and a tendril of cool shadow brushed the back of her hand. Not holding. Just—there. A tether. "Time loosens here. The way to keep your footing is to keep your purpose. Why did we come?"

"For answers," Aurora said. The pendant. The dreams. The name a dying thing had spat at her in an alley three nights ago—*Malphora*—as if it knew her, as if it had always known her. "For her."

As if the word were a key, the path bent, and the grove gave up its center.

A pool lay in the heart of it, still and black as obsidian, ringed with flowers that bent over their own reflections. No spring fed it, no stream drained it; it simply was, perfectly round, and the slow gold light did not touch its surface at all. The water held the sky—but not the warm amber-gold of the canopy above. It held a sky Aurora had never seen, all wrong constellations and a moon that was too large, too close, scarred with seas the wrong shape.

She crouched at the edge. Her own reflection looked back, and behind it, where Nyx stood, the pool showed not a shadow but a man—pale, sharp-featured, dressed in the high stiff collar of some other century, his eyes the ordinary brown of someone who had once been ordinary. He looked tired. He looked human.

Behind her, Nyx made a sound she had never heard from them before. A small, broken intake of breath.

"Don't," they said. "Don't look at the water."

She straightened too fast, dizzy, and that was when she noticed the silence had changed. The birds had stopped. The light-motes hung motionless in the air, suspended, as if the whole grove had drawn breath and forgotten to release it.

"You came a long way," said a voice from the trees, "for something you already carry."

A woman stood at the pool's far edge where no woman had been a moment before. Silver hair fell past her waist, stirring in a wind Aurora couldn't feel. Her eyes were the pale lavender of the first flush of dawn, and when she stepped forward over the soft grass, Aurora's gaze dropped, helpless, to the ground—

—where the wildflowers sprang back unbent, and no footprint marked her passing at all.

"Isolde," Aurora breathed.

The Seer smiled, and it was not entirely kind. "You know my name. Brave girl. I wonder—" her head tilted, birdlike, those impossible eyes flicking from Aurora's face to the crimson stone burning faintly at her throat "—if you yet know your own."

Evaluation details

Result

Evaluator

Details

Meta Data

100.00%

Adverbs in dialogue tags

Target: ≤10% dialogue tags with adverbs

totalTags	11
adverbTagCount	0
adverbTags	(empty)
dialogueSentences	22
tagDensity	0.5
leniency	1
rawRatio	0
effectiveRatio	0

72.30%

AI-ism adverb frequency

Target: <2% AI-ism adverbs (58 tracked)

wordCount

1083

totalAiIsmAdverbs

found

adverb	"very"
count	1

adverb	"slightly"
count	1

adverb	"slowly"
count	1

adverb	"reluctantly"
count	1

adverb	"really"
count	1

adverb	"perfectly"
count	1

highlights

0	"very"
1	"slightly"
2	"slowly"
3	"reluctantly"
4	"really"
5	"perfectly"

100.00%

AI-ism character names

Target: 0 AI-default names (17 tracked, −20% each)

codexExemptions	(empty)
found	(empty)

100.00%

AI-ism location names

Target: 0 AI-default location names (33 tracked, −20% each)

codexExemptions	(empty)
found	(empty)

63.07%

AI-ism word frequency

Target: <2% AI-ism words (290 tracked)

wordCount

1083

totalAiIsms

found

word	"whisper"
count	1

word	"warmth"
count	1

word	"silence"
count	2

word	"resolved"
count	1

word	"weight"
count	1

word	"pulsed"
count	1

word	"stomach"
count	1

highlights

0	"whisper"
1	"warmth"
2	"silence"
3	"resolved"
4	"weight"
5	"pulsed"
6	"stomach"

100.00%

Cliché density

Target: ≤1 cliche(s) per 800-word window

totalCliches	0
maxInWindow	0
found	(empty)
highlights	(empty)

100.00%

Emotion telling (show vs. tell)

Target: ≤3% sentences with emotion telling

emotionTells	0
narrationSentences	68
matches	(empty)

100.00%

Filter word density

Target: ≤3% sentences with filter/hedge words

filterCount

hedgeCount

narrationSentences

filterMatches

(empty)

hedgeMatches

0	"seemed to"

100.00%

Gibberish response detection

Target: ≤1% gibberish-like sentences (hard fail if a sentence exceeds 800 words)

analyzedSentences	77
gibberishSentences	0
adjustedGibberishSentences	0
longSentenceCount	0
runOnParagraphCount	0
giantParagraphCount	0
wordSaladCount	0
repetitionLoopCount	0
controlTokenCount	0
repeatedSegmentCount	0
maxSentenceWordsSeen	53
ratio	0
matches	(empty)

100.00%

Markdown formatting overuse

Target: ≤5% words in markdown formatting

markdownSpans

markdownWords

totalWords

1073

ratio

0.013

matches

0	"an hour in the Grove can be a minute outside, or a week."
1	"Malphora"

100.00%

Missing dialogue indicators (quotation marks)

Target: ≤10% speech attributions without quotation marks

totalAttributions	13
unquotedAttributions	0
matches	(empty)

100.00%

Name drop frequency

Target: ≤1.0 per-name mentions per 100 words

totalMentions

wordCount

964

uniqueNames

maxNameDensity

0.93

worstName

"Aurora"

maxWindowNameDensity

worstWindowName

"Aurora"

discoveredNames

Richmond	1
Park	1
October	1
May	1
Heartstone	1
Hel	2
London	2
Nyx	6
Eva	1
Grove	1
Aurora	9
Seer	1

persons

0	"Nyx"
1	"Eva"
2	"Grove"
3	"Aurora"
4	"Seer"

places

0	"Richmond"
1	"Park"
2	"May"
3	"London"

globalScore

windowScore

93.18%

Narrator intent-glossing

Target: ≤2% narration sentences with intent-glossing patterns

analyzedSentences

glossingSentenceCount

matches

0	"quite stone and wasn't quite wood"
1	"quite wood"

100.00%

"Not X but Y" pattern overuse

Target: ≤1 "not X but Y" per 1000 words

totalMatches

per1kWords

0.932

wordCount

1073

matches

0	"not a shadow but a man"

100.00%

Overuse of "that" (subordinate clause padding)

Target: ≤2% sentences with "that" clauses

thatCount	0
totalSentences	77
matches	(empty)

100.00%

Paragraph length variance

Target: CV ≥0.5 for paragraph word counts

totalParagraphs

mean

std

30.02

0.811

sampleLengths

0	57
1	6
2	57
3	38
4	11
5	53
6	3
7	84
8	84
9	4
10	14
11	18
12	113
13	11
14	8
15	79
16	40
17	36
18	17
19	86
20	54
21	19
22	8
23	40
24	16
25	57
26	14
27	3
28	43

100.00%

Passive voice overuse

Target: ≤2% passive sentences

passiveCount	0
totalSentences	68
matches	(empty)

100.00%

Past progressive (was/were + -ing) overuse

Target: ≤2% past progressive verbs

pastProgressiveCount

totalVerbs

155

matches

0	"was coming"

0.00%

Em-dash & semicolon overuse

Target: ≤2% sentences with em-dashes/semicolons

emDashCount

semicolonCount

flaggedSentences

totalSentences

ratio

0.182

matches

0	"The standing stones rose out of the bracken like the ribs of something long dead—ancient oaks, but wrong, their bark grown over and fossilized into a grey that wasn't quite stone and wasn't quite wood."
1	"The traffic-hum of London—so constant she'd long stopped hearing it—simply ceased, sheared off mid-breath, and into the silence rushed birdsong she didn't recognize, liquid and rising and falling in patterns that felt almost like speech."
2	"The shadow elongated, found a patch of dimness beneath an overhanging branch, and resolved—slowly, almost reluctantly—into something more solid."
3	"The trees here were the real thing, oaks vast enough that six people couldn't have ringed their trunks, but the light that fell through their canopy was the wrong gold—too thick, too slow, settling on her arms like warm honey, like it had weight."
4	"Motes drifted in it that she first took for dust and then for insects and then for neither; they pulsed with their own faint light, swimming up from the flowers in lazy spirals, and where they touched her skin she felt a small sweet shock, like static, like a memory she couldn't catch."
5	"If a week passed—"
6	"Just—there."
7	"The name a dying thing had spat at her in an alley three nights ago—Malphora—as if it knew her, as if it had always known her."
8	"No spring fed it, no stream drained it; it simply was, perfectly round, and the slow gold light did not touch its surface at all."
9	"The water held the sky—but not the warm amber-gold of the canopy above."
10	"Her own reflection looked back, and behind it, where Nyx stood, the pool showed not a shadow but a man—pale, sharp-featured, dressed in the high stiff collar of some other century, his eyes the ordinary brown of someone who had once been ordinary."
11	"Her eyes were the pale lavender of the first flush of dawn, and when she stepped forward over the soft grass, Aurora's gaze dropped, helpless, to the ground—"
12	"—where the wildflowers sprang back unbent, and no footprint marked her passing at all."
13	"\"You know my name. Brave girl. I wonder—\" her head tilted, birdlike, those impossible eyes flicking from Aurora's face to the crimson stone burning faintly at her throat \"—if you yet know your own.\""

81.12%

Purple prose (modifier overload)

Target: <4% adverbs, <2% -ly adverbs, no adj stacking

wordCount

982

adjectiveStacks

stackExamples

0	"lay cool against her"
1	"white star-shaped things"

adverbCount

adverbRatio

0.04786150712830957

lyAdverbCount

lyAdverbRatio

0.012219959266802444

100.00%

Repeated phrase echo

Target: ≤20% sentences with echoes (window: 2)

totalSentences	77
echoCount	0
echoWords	(empty)

100.00%

Sentence length variance

Target: CV ≥0.4 for sentence word counts

totalSentences

mean

13.94

std

11.83

0.849

sampleLengths

0	35
1	22
2	6
3	5
4	3
5	21
6	28
7	4
8	30
9	4
10	6
11	5
12	17
13	18
14	5
15	13
16	3
17	9
18	3
19	35
20	37
21	11
22	19
23	14
24	24
25	16
26	4
27	6
28	8
29	1
30	13
31	4
32	16
33	44
34	53
35	11
36	3
37	5
38	7
39	31
40	30
41	7
42	4
43	17
44	2
45	1
46	2
47	18
48	4
49	2

57.58%

Sentence opener variety

Target: ≥60% unique sentence openers

consecutiveRepeats	9
diversityRatio	0.4155844155844156
totalSentences	77
uniqueOpeners	32

0.00%

Adverb-first sentence starts

Target: ≥3% sentences starting with an adverb

adverbCount	0
totalSentences	55
matches	(empty)
ratio	0

89.09%

Pronoun-first sentence starts

Target: ≤30% sentences starting with a pronoun

pronounCount

totalSentences

matches

0	"Their voice came as it"
1	"She drew the pendant out"
2	"She stepped through."
3	"Her ears popped."
4	"Their eyes were the only"
5	"They went on, deeper, and"
6	"she said, and hated how"
7	"She glanced back the way"
8	"She thought of the warning"
9	"She'd told no one she"
10	"It held a sky Aurora"
11	"She crouched at the edge."
12	"Her own reflection looked back,"
13	"He looked tired."
14	"He looked human."
15	"She straightened too fast, dizzy,"
16	"Her eyes were the pale"
17	"her head tilted, birdlike, those"

ratio

0.327

60.00%

Subject-first sentence starts

Target: ≤72% sentences starting with a subject

subjectCount

totalSentences

matches

0	"The standing stones rose out"
1	"Aurora stopped at the threshold"
2	"Their voice came as it"
3	"The cold of the October"
4	"She drew the pendant out"
5	"The Heartstone lay cool against"
6	"Whatever lay past the stones,"
7	"She stepped through."
8	"The change came over her"
9	"Her ears popped."
10	"The traffic-hum of London—so constant"
11	"The grass beneath her boots"
12	"Nyx murmured, pouring through the"
13	"The shadow elongated, found a"
14	"A tall figure, six feet"
15	"Their eyes were the only"
16	"The word came out strange"
17	"The word they used for"
18	"Aurora let it lie."
19	"They went on, deeper, and"

ratio

0.8

100.00%

Subordinate conjunction sentence starts

Target: ≥2% sentences starting with a subordinating conjunction

subConjCount

totalSentences

matches

0	"If a week passed—"
1	"As if the word were"

ratio

0.036

12.99%

Technical jargon density

Target: ≤6% sentences with technical-jargon patterns

analyzedSentences

technicalSentenceCount

matches

0	"The standing stones rose out of the bracken like the ribs of something long dead—ancient oaks, but wrong, their bark grown over and fossilized into a grey that …"
1	"The traffic-hum of London—so constant she'd long stopped hearing it—simply ceased, sheared off mid-breath, and into the silence rushed birdsong she didn't recog…"
2	"The grass beneath her boots was springy and absurdly green, jeweled with wildflowers that had no business blooming together: bluebells beside foxgloves beside l…"
3	"It held a sky Aurora had never seen, all wrong constellations and a moon that was too large, too close, scarred with seas the wrong shape."
4	"Her own reflection looked back, and behind it, where Nyx stood, the pool showed not a shadow but a man—pale, sharp-featured, dressed in the high stiff collar of…"
5	"The light-motes hung motionless in the air, suspended, as if the whole grove had drawn breath and forgotten to release it."

100.00%

Useless dialogue additions

Target: ≤5% dialogue tags with trailing filler fragments

totalTags	11
uselessAdditionCount	0
matches	(empty)

13.64%

Dialogue tag variety (said vs. fancy)

Target: ≤10% fancy dialogue tags

totalTags

fancyCount

fancyTags

0	"Nyx murmured (murmur)"
1	"Nyx agreed (agree)"
2	"Aurora breathed (breathe)"

dialogueSentences

tagDensity

0.409

leniency

0.818

rawRatio

0.333

effectiveRatio

0.273

81.4319%