Run: 2026-07-01-01KWE9965DXXMWDPJKXVKQ64E0

Run Details

Model:: Claude Sonnet 5 (Reasoning, Low)
Test:: Bad Writing Habits
Scenario:: Fantasy: entering an ancient ruin
Duration:: 33.8s
Cost:: $0.026030
Provider:: Amazon Bedrock

Evaluation summary

Score	Evaluator	Details Link
46.15%	Adverbs in dialogue tags	(details)
78.07%	AI-ism adverb frequency	(details)
100.00%	AI-ism character names	(details)
100.00%	AI-ism location names	(details)
60.53%	AI-ism word frequency	(details)
100.00%	Cliché density	(details)
100.00%	Emotion telling (show vs. tell)	(details)
12.99%	Filter word density	(details)
100.00%	Gibberish response detection	(details)
100.00%	Markdown formatting overuse	(details)
100.00%	Missing dialogue indicators (quotation marks)	(details)
66.67%	Name drop frequency	(details)
0.00%	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)
81.34%	Passive voice overuse	(details)
78.05%	Past progressive (was/were + -ing) overuse	(details)
0.00%	Em-dash & semicolon overuse	(details)
91.16%	Purple prose (modifier overload)	(details)
100.00%	Repeated phrase echo	(details)
100.00%	Sentence length variance	(details)
80.12%	Sentence opener variety	(details)
0.00%	Adverb-first sentence starts	(details)
100.00%	Pronoun-first sentence starts	(details)
7.62%	Subject-first sentence starts	(details)
0.00%	Subordinate conjunction sentence starts	(details)
0.00%	Technical jargon density	(details)
9.62%	Useless dialogue additions	(details)
73.08%	Dialogue tag variety (said vs. fancy)	(details)
66.1793%	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 oaks marked the boundary the way tombstones mark a grave—old, leaning, older than they had any right to look. Rory counted seven of them as she passed between the nearest pair, their bark black and shining like they'd been dipped in tar and left to dry a thousand years ago. Nyx moved beside her without seeming to move at all, a smudge of deeper dark against the evening gray, and behind them both Isolde walked with her silver hair catching light that had no visible source.

"You're staring," Isolde said, without turning.

"I'm allowed to stare. You just led us through a bunch of dead trees into—" Rory stopped, because the word wasn't coming. She lifted her hand instead, gesturing at all of it.

The grove opened before them like a held breath finally released. Wildflowers she didn't have names for carpeted the ground in drifts of blue and a color that wasn't quite gold and wasn't quite green, and they were blooming, actually blooming, despite the fact that London three feet behind her had been gray and bitter with the last week of November. The air smelled of crushed mint and something sweeter underneath, like fruit gone ripe in the sun, and it was warm here in a way that made her shiver worse than the cold had.

"Time doesn't behave," Isolde said, answering the question before Rory asked it. "You feel that it's wrong. You are correct."

"How wrong?"

"Wrong enough that I would not linger to find out."

Nyx's voice slid out of the shadows pooling beneath an ancient willow, a whisper that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. *"It smells like memory here. Old magic left to rot sweetly instead of sour."* They drifted forward, and where their form crossed a patch of the blue flowers, the petals folded shut, as if flinching. *"I don't like it."*

"You don't like anything," Rory muttered, but she felt it too—an itch along the back of her neck, the sense of being observed by something that had been watching long before they arrived and would keep watching long after they left.

They went deeper. The path, if it could be called that, wound between standing stones that grew taller the further in they went, some etched with symbols that hurt to look at directly, spirals that seemed to turn the longer her eyes lingered on them. Rory made herself glance away each time. Whatever the marks meant, she suspected the meaning wasn't meant for mortal eyes, and she'd learned enough over the last few months to trust the instinct that told her not to look too hard at things that weren't hers to understand.

The Heartstone pendant warmed against her collarbone. Not the hot pulse it gave near a rift to Hel—this was gentler, curious almost, like it was leaning toward something rather than reacting to it.

"Isolde." She touched the pendant through her shirt. "It's doing something."

The seer paused mid-step, her expression unreadable in the strange light. "The Grove remembers what does not belong to this world. Your stone is not so unlike this place. Both are pieces of somewhere else, wearing Earth like borrowed clothes."

"That's not creepy at all."

"I did not say it to comfort you."

They came to a place where the trees thinned and the ground dropped in a shallow bowl, and in the center of that bowl grew a single tree unlike any of the oaks around it—slender, silver-barked, its leaves the deep unsettling crimson of the stone at Rory's throat. It stood alone in a ring of mushrooms so perfectly circular it looked drawn with a compass, and the air around it seemed to hum, a vibration Rory felt more in her teeth than her ears.

"Don't step inside the ring," Isolde said quietly, and for the first time since Rory had met her, there was something like caution in the seer's voice instead of amusement. "Not even a toe."

"What happens if I do?"

"I don't know. No one who has tried has come back to tell me."

Rory swallowed and took a very deliberate step to the left, giving the ring a wide, respectful berth. Nyx had gone very still beside her, their violet eyes fixed on the crimson tree with an intensity that unsettled her more than the tree itself did.

*"I remember this,"* they whispered, and their voice had lost its usual dry edge. *"Or something like it. Before I was—before Aldric was lost between the realms, there were trees like this. In the old rituals. We called them Doorwoods. They don't lead anywhere good."*

"Comforting," Rory said again, though her heart had started thudding harder.

A sound drifted through the grove then—not quite music, not quite voices, a layered murmuring like a crowd speaking softly in a language built from vowels alone. It came from everywhere and nowhere, the way Nyx's voice did, and the wildflowers nearest the crimson tree swayed though there was no wind to move them.

"We should keep moving," Isolde said, and for once her riddling calm had thinned enough that Rory could hear the truth underneath it plainly: she was afraid too, or as close to afraid as three hundred years of exile could allow her to be.

They skirted the bowl, climbing the far slope, and the murmuring faded behind them like a tide pulling back from shore. Rory's legs ached in a way that had nothing to do with distance—the Grove seemed to pull something out of a person simply by existing around them, some fee paid in exhaustion for the privilege of walking through wonder.

At the top of the rise, the trees opened again, and below them lay a pool of water so still and dark it looked less like liquid and more like a window into something. Isolde stopped there, at the edge, and knelt.

"This is what I brought you to see," she said.

Rory looked down at the black mirror of the water and saw, for one dizzying second, not her own reflection but Evan's face, twisted with the old fury she'd fled two years and a lifetime ago. She staggered back with a gasp, and the image dissolved into ripples that hadn't been caused by any stone.

"It shows you what you fear," Isolde said, unbothered, "so that you might know it before it knows you."

Rory pressed a hand to her chest, to the warm stone beneath her shirt, and forced her breathing to slow. Beside her, Nyx's shadow-form had drawn in tighter, smaller, as though the pool had shown them something too, something they weren't offering to share.

"Wonderful," Rory said, when she trusted her voice again. "Brilliant. Love it here."

But she didn't look away from the water. Not yet.

Evaluation details

Result

Evaluator

Details

Meta Data

46.15%

Adverbs in dialogue tags

Target: ≤10% dialogue tags with adverbs

totalTags

adverbTagCount

adverbTags

0	"Isolde said quietly [quietly]"
1	"Rory said again [again]"

dialogueSentences

tagDensity

0.5

leniency

rawRatio

0.154

effectiveRatio

0.154

78.07%

AI-ism adverb frequency

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

wordCount

1140

totalAiIsmAdverbs

found

adverb	"sweetly"
count	1

adverb	"perfectly"
count	1

adverb	"very"
count	2

adverb	"softly"
count	1

highlights

0	"sweetly"
1	"perfectly"
2	"very"
3	"softly"

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)

60.53%

AI-ism word frequency

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

wordCount

1140

totalAiIsms

found

word	"grave"
count	1

word	"whisper"
count	1

word	"sense of"
count	1

word	"etched"
count	1

word	"pulse"
count	1

word	"unreadable"
count	1

word	"intensity"
count	1

word	"unsettled"
count	1

word	"comforting"
count	1

highlights

0	"grave"
1	"whisper"
2	"sense of"
3	"etched"
4	"pulse"
5	"unreadable"
6	"intensity"
7	"unsettled"
8	"comforting"

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

narrationSentences

matches

0	"was afraid"

12.99%

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	57
gibberishSentences	0
adjustedGibberishSentences	0
longSentenceCount	0
runOnParagraphCount	0
giantParagraphCount	0
wordSaladCount	0
repetitionLoopCount	0
controlTokenCount	0
repeatedSegmentCount	0
maxSentenceWordsSeen	50
ratio	0
matches	(empty)

100.00%

Markdown formatting overuse

Target: ≤5% words in markdown formatting

markdownSpans

markdownWords

totalWords

1133

ratio

0.046

matches

0	"\"It smells like memory here. Old magic left to rot sweetly instead of sour.\""
1	"\"I don't like it.\""
2	"\"I remember this,\""
3	"\"Or something like it. Before I was—before Aldric was lost between the realms, there were trees like this. In the old rituals. We called them Doorwoods. They don't lead anywhere good.\""

100.00%

Missing dialogue indicators (quotation marks)

Target: ≤10% speech attributions without quotation marks

totalAttributions	14
unquotedAttributions	0
matches	(empty)

66.67%

Name drop frequency

Target: ≤1.0 per-name mentions per 100 words

totalMentions

wordCount

929

uniqueNames

maxNameDensity

1.61

worstName

"Rory"

maxWindowNameDensity

worstWindowName

"Rory"

discoveredNames

Isolde	7
Rory	15
London	1
November	1
Nyx	5
Heartstone	1
Hel	1
Grove	1
Evan	1

persons

0	"Isolde"
1	"Rory"
2	"Nyx"
3	"Grove"
4	"Evan"

places

0	"London"
1	"Hel"

globalScore

0.693

windowScore

0.667

0.00%

Narrator intent-glossing

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

analyzedSentences

glossingSentenceCount

matches

0	"whisper that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere"
1	"as if flinching"
2	"spirals that seemed to turn the longer her eyes lingered on them"
3	"something like caution in the seer's voice i"
4	"not quite music, not quite voices, a layered murmuring like a crowd speaking softly in a language built from vowels alone"
5	"not quite voices, a layered murmuring like a crowd speaking softly in a language built from vowels alone"

100.00%

"Not X but Y" pattern overuse

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

totalMatches

per1kWords

0.883

wordCount

1133

matches

0	"not her own reflection but Evan's face, twisted with the old fury she'd fled two years"

100.00%

Overuse of "that" (subordinate clause padding)

Target: ≤2% sentences with "that" clauses

thatCount	0
totalSentences	57
matches	(empty)

100.00%

Paragraph length variance

Target: CV ≥0.5 for paragraph word counts

totalParagraphs

mean

35.41

std

27.1

0.765

sampleLengths

0	87
1	6
2	32
3	95
4	20
5	2
6	10
7	61
8	41
9	93
10	33
11	11
12	40
13	5
14	8
15	84
16	34
17	5
18	14
19	45
20	45
21	11
22	54
23	44
24	60
25	42
26	10
27	55
28	19
29	44
30	13
31	10

81.34%

Passive voice overuse

Target: ≤2% passive sentences

passiveCount

totalSentences

matches

0	"been dipped"
1	"being observed"
2	"been caused"

78.05%

Past progressive (was/were + -ing) overuse

Target: ≤2% past progressive verbs

pastProgressiveCount

totalVerbs

164

matches

0	"wasn't coming"
1	"were blooming"
2	"weren't offering"

0.00%

Em-dash & semicolon overuse

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

emDashCount

semicolonCount

flaggedSentences

totalSentences

ratio

0.105

matches

0	"The oaks marked the boundary the way tombstones mark a grave—old, leaning, older than they had any right to look."
1	"\"You don't like anything,\" Rory muttered, but she felt it too—an itch along the back of her neck, the sense of being observed by something that had been watching long before they arrived and would keep watching long after they left."
2	"Not the hot pulse it gave near a rift to Hel—this was gentler, curious almost, like it was leaning toward something rather than reacting to it."
3	"They came to a place where the trees thinned and the ground dropped in a shallow bowl, and in the center of that bowl grew a single tree unlike any of the oaks around it—slender, silver-barked, its leaves the deep unsettling crimson of the stone at Rory's throat."
4	"A sound drifted through the grove then—not quite music, not quite voices, a layered murmuring like a crowd speaking softly in a language built from vowels alone."
5	"Rory's legs ached in a way that had nothing to do with distance—the Grove seemed to pull something out of a person simply by existing around them, some fee paid in exhaustion for the privilege of walking through wonder."

91.16%

Purple prose (modifier overload)

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

wordCount	938
adjectiveStacks	0
stackExamples	(empty)
adverbCount	47
adverbRatio	0.050106609808102345
lyAdverbCount	8
lyAdverbRatio	0.008528784648187633

100.00%

Repeated phrase echo

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

totalSentences	57
echoCount	0
echoWords	(empty)

100.00%

Sentence length variance

Target: CV ≥0.4 for sentence word counts

totalSentences

mean

19.88

std

13.58

0.683

sampleLengths

0	20
1	31
2	36
3	6
4	22
5	10
6	11
7	50
8	34
9	12
10	8
11	2
12	10
13	22
14	35
15	4
16	41
17	3
18	42
19	7
20	41
21	7
22	26
23	8
24	3
25	11
26	29
27	5
28	8
29	48
30	36
31	30
32	4
33	5
34	14
35	18
36	27
37	14
38	31
39	11
40	27
41	27
42	44
43	21
44	39
45	34
46	8
47	10
48	36
49	19

80.12%

Sentence opener variety

Target: ≥60% unique sentence openers

consecutiveRepeats	1
diversityRatio	0.49122807017543857
totalSentences	57
uniqueOpeners	28

0.00%

Adverb-first sentence starts

Target: ≥3% sentences starting with an adverb

adverbCount	0
totalSentences	42
matches	(empty)
ratio	0

100.00%

Pronoun-first sentence starts

Target: ≤30% sentences starting with a pronoun

pronounCount

totalSentences

matches

0	"She lifted her hand instead,"
1	"They drifted forward, and where"
2	"They went deeper."
3	"She touched the pendant through"
4	"They came to a place"
5	"It stood alone in a"
6	"they whispered, and their voice"
7	"It came from everywhere and"
8	"They skirted the bowl, climbing"
9	"She staggered back with a"

ratio

0.238

7.62%

Subject-first sentence starts

Target: ≤72% sentences starting with a subject

subjectCount

totalSentences

matches

0	"The oaks marked the boundary"
1	"Rory counted seven of them"
2	"Nyx moved beside her without"
3	"Isolde said, without turning"
4	"Rory stopped, because the word"
5	"She lifted her hand instead,"
6	"The grove opened before them"
7	"Wildflowers she didn't have names"
8	"The air smelled of crushed"
9	"Isolde said, answering the question"
10	"Nyx's voice slid out of"
11	"They drifted forward, and where"
12	"Rory muttered, but she felt"
13	"They went deeper."
14	"The path, if it could"
15	"Rory made herself glance away"
16	"Whatever the marks meant, she"
17	"The Heartstone pendant warmed against"
18	"She touched the pendant through"
19	"The seer paused mid-step, her"

ratio

0.905

0.00%

Subordinate conjunction sentence starts

Target: ≥2% sentences starting with a subordinating conjunction

subConjCount	0
totalSentences	42
matches	(empty)
ratio	0

0.00%

Technical jargon density

Target: ≤6% sentences with technical-jargon patterns

analyzedSentences

technicalSentenceCount

matches

0	"Nyx moved beside her without seeming to move at all, a smudge of deeper dark against the evening gray, and behind them both Isolde walked with her silver hair c…"
1	"Wildflowers she didn't have names for carpeted the ground in drifts of blue and a color that wasn't quite gold and wasn't quite green, and they were blooming, a…"
2	"The air smelled of crushed mint and something sweeter underneath, like fruit gone ripe in the sun, and it was warm here in a way that made her shiver worse than…"
3	"Nyx's voice slid out of the shadows pooling beneath an ancient willow, a whisper that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere."
4	"Whatever the marks meant, she suspected the meaning wasn't meant for mortal eyes, and she'd learned enough over the last few months to trust the instinct that t…"
5	"Rory's legs ached in a way that had nothing to do with distance—the Grove seemed to pull something out of a person simply by existing around them, some fee paid…"
6	"Beside her, Nyx's shadow-form had drawn in tighter, smaller, as though the pool had shown them something too, something they weren't offering to share."

9.62%

Useless dialogue additions

Target: ≤5% dialogue tags with trailing filler fragments

totalTags

uselessAdditionCount

matches

0	"Isolde said, without turning"
1	"Rory stopped, because the word wasn't coming"
2	"Rory said again, though her heart had started thudding harder"

73.08%

Dialogue tag variety (said vs. fancy)

Target: ≤10% fancy dialogue tags

totalTags

fancyCount

fancyTags

0	"Rory muttered (mutter)"
1	"they whispered (whisper)"

dialogueSentences

tagDensity

0.385

leniency

0.769

rawRatio

0.2

effectiveRatio

0.154

66.1793%