Run: 2026-07-01-01KWEA9X78BMEFXPK5ZZX2TSHV

Run Details

Model:: Claude Sonnet 5
Test:: Bad Writing Habits
Scenario:: Fantasy: entering an ancient ruin
Duration:: 32.2s
Cost:: $0.024610
Provider:: Amazon Bedrock

Evaluation summary

Score	Evaluator	Details Link
51.85%	Adverbs in dialogue tags	(details)
53.23%	AI-ism adverb frequency	(details)
100.00%	AI-ism character names	(details)
100.00%	AI-ism location names	(details)
57.90%	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)
90.62%	Name drop frequency	(details)
66.67%	Narrator intent-glossing	(details)
0.00%	"Not X but Y" pattern overuse	(details)
51.72%	Overuse of "that" (subordinate clause padding)	(details)
100.00%	Paragraph length variance	(details)
80.78%	Passive voice overuse	(details)
100.00%	Past progressive (was/were + -ing) overuse	(details)
0.00%	Em-dash & semicolon overuse	(details)
81.97%	Purple prose (modifier overload)	(details)
100.00%	Repeated phrase echo	(details)
100.00%	Sentence length variance	(details)
63.79%	Sentence opener variety	(details)
0.00%	Adverb-first sentence starts	(details)
86.67%	Pronoun-first sentence starts	(details)
0.00%	Subject-first sentence starts	(details)
0.00%	Subordinate conjunction sentence starts	(details)
0.00%	Technical jargon density	(details)
100.00%	Useless dialogue additions	(details)
38.89%	Dialogue tag variety (said vs. fancy)	(details)
67.4698%	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—not a wall, exactly, but a promise that something had ended and something else had begun. Rory counted them as she passed between the first two, some old habit from childhood, and lost track almost immediately because the number didn't matter once she was through. The air changed. That was the only way she could describe it later, when Eva asked. The air changed, like walking into a greenhouse, except the humidity that touched her skin smelled of crushed thyme and rain that hadn't fallen yet.

"Stay close," Isolde said, though she'd already drifted ten feet ahead, her silver hair swallowing the scant light and giving nothing back. "The grove does not punish trespassers. But it does test them."

"Comforting," Nyx murmured, their voice a susurrus at Rory's shoulder, and when she glanced over, their edges had gone soft and smoke-thin, as though the grove's strangeness made even a Shade uncertain of its own shape.

The wildflowers came first—drifts of them, blue and gold and a violet so deep it looked bruised, growing in patterns too deliberate to be wild, spiraling out from the roots of the standing stones like they'd been planted by someone who understood geometry better than gardening. Rory crouched to touch one and found it warm, warmer than the air, as if it had swallowed a whole day of sunlight and hadn't finished digesting it.

"They don't die," Isolde said without turning. "Nothing here remembers how."

"That's not ominous at all."

"It is only ominous if you were hoping to leave."

Rory straightened fast enough that her vision swam, and Nyx's not-quite-hand found her elbow, steadying her without quite touching. She looked up—there was no sky, not really, or there was, but it moved like water seen from beneath the surface, pearled and shifting, throwing down light that came from no single direction and cast no shadows at all. She noticed that last part with a small lurch of vertigo. No shadows. Not from the trees, not from the stones, not from her own body. Nyx, beside her, seemed to notice it too; they went very still, the way a person goes still when they step into a room and realize the mirror doesn't show their reflection.

"You feel it," Rory said.

"I feel absent," Nyx answered, and there was something in their whisper-voice she hadn't heard before—not fear, exactly, but its quieter cousin. "This place does not know what to make of me. I am shadow. It has none to compare me to."

They went deeper. The path—if it was a path, if the ground had decided to make walking easier for them out of some obscure courtesy—wound between trees whose bark shimmered faintly, silver-green, and whose leaves chimed very softly when the air moved through them, a sound like struck crystal heard from underwater. Rory found herself listening for a rhythm in it and almost finding one, three notes and a pause, three notes and a pause, before she caught herself holding her breath to hear better and made herself stop.

"Don't," Isolde said.

"Don't what?"

"Listen too closely. The trees are not singing to you. They are singing to something else, and if you listen long enough you begin to answer, and then you are singing too, and you may find you have been standing in one place for three days believing only minutes have passed."

Rory looked back the way they'd come. The standing stones were gone. Not far away—gone, swallowed by trees that hadn't been there a moment ago, or had always been there and only now permitted themselves to be seen. Her pulse ticked up. She thought of the Heartstone pendant at her throat, cool now, utterly cool, no warmth in it at all, which meant wherever else this place touched, it wasn't Hel, and she let that be a small comfort.

"It's beautiful," she admitted, because it was, unbearably so, the kind of beauty that made her chest ache in a way she didn't have a word for. "I keep waiting for it to feel wrong. It doesn't. That's what feels wrong."

"That is wisdom," Isolde said, and for once there was no riddle folded into it.

They came, after a time that might have been twenty minutes or might have been an hour stretched thin, to a pool. It was perfectly still, black as the space between stars, and standing at its edge Rory could see no reflection of herself, no reflection of Isolde, no reflection of the strange nacreous sky—only, faint and slow, the reflection of somewhere else entirely: a room with candlelight, a chair by a window, rain against glass. She didn't recognize it. She had the unsettling sense that she was meant to.

"What is this?"

"A door that has forgotten how to open," Isolde said. "Or one that has not yet decided to. Do not touch the water."

"I wasn't going to."

"You were considering it. I felt you consider it."

Nyx crouched at the pool's far edge, their violet eyes—the only true color on them now, everything else gone to smoke and suggestion—fixed on the black water with an intensity that made Rory's skin prickle. "I have seen a pool like this before," they said slowly. "In 1643. Before I was this." A pause, long enough that the leaves chimed twice through it. "I did not like what it showed me then, either."

"What did it show you?"

Nyx didn't answer. They rose instead, shadow reassembling itself into something more solid, more deliberately human-shaped, as though they'd decided this was not a place to be caught unguarded.

Rory looked once more at the little candlelit room in the water's black mirror, at the rain she couldn't hear, and felt the strange and certain pull of it, a fishhook set somewhere behind her sternum. She stepped back instead. The flowers by her feet turned, very slowly, to follow the movement, and she decided she would not mention that to anyone, not yet, not until she understood what it meant that this ancient and singing and shadowless place had noticed her at all.

"Come," Isolde said, already moving on, her feet leaving no mark in the soft bright grass. "There is further to go, and the grove does not wait for wonder to finish."

Evaluation details

Result

Evaluator

Details

Meta Data

51.85%

Adverbs in dialogue tags

Target: ≤10% dialogue tags with adverbs

totalTags

adverbTagCount

adverbTags

0	"they said slowly [slowly]"
1	"the leaves chimed twice [twice]"

dialogueSentences

tagDensity

0.444

leniency

0.889

rawRatio

0.167

effectiveRatio

0.148

53.23%

AI-ism adverb frequency

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

wordCount

1069

totalAiIsmAdverbs

found

adverb	"really"
count	1

adverb	"very"
count	3

adverb	"softly"
count	1

adverb	"utterly"
count	1

adverb	"perfectly"
count	1

adverb	"slowly"
count	2

adverb	"deliberately"
count	1

highlights

0	"really"
1	"very"
2	"softly"
3	"utterly"
4	"perfectly"
5	"slowly"
6	"deliberately"

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)

57.90%

AI-ism word frequency

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

wordCount

1069

totalAiIsms

found

word	"grave"
count	1

word	"comforting"
count	1

word	"lurch"
count	1

word	"whisper"
count	1

word	"shimmered"
count	1

word	"crystal"
count	1

word	"pulse"
count	1

word	"warmth"
count	1

word	"intensity"
count	1

highlights

0	"grave"
1	"comforting"
2	"lurch"
3	"whisper"
4	"shimmered"
5	"crystal"
6	"pulse"
7	"warmth"
8	"intensity"

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	43
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	58
gibberishSentences	0
adjustedGibberishSentences	0
longSentenceCount	0
runOnParagraphCount	0
giantParagraphCount	0
wordSaladCount	0
repetitionLoopCount	0
controlTokenCount	0
repeatedSegmentCount	0
maxSentenceWordsSeen	55
ratio	0
matches	(empty)

100.00%

Markdown formatting overuse

Target: ≤5% words in markdown formatting

markdownSpans	0
markdownWords	0
totalWords	1059
ratio	0
matches	(empty)

100.00%

Missing dialogue indicators (quotation marks)

Target: ≤10% speech attributions without quotation marks

totalAttributions	13
unquotedAttributions	0
matches	(empty)

90.62%

Name drop frequency

Target: ≤1.0 per-name mentions per 100 words

totalMentions

wordCount

842

uniqueNames

maxNameDensity

1.19

worstName

"Rory"

maxWindowNameDensity

1.5

worstWindowName

"Nyx"

discoveredNames

Eva	1
Nyx	6
Rory	10
Shade	1
Heartstone	1
Hel	1
Isolde	7

persons

0	"Eva"
1	"Nyx"
2	"Rory"
3	"Isolde"

places

(empty)

globalScore

0.906

windowScore

66.67%

Narrator intent-glossing

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

analyzedSentences

glossingSentenceCount

matches

0	"not-quite hand found her elbow, steadying her without quite touching"

0.00%

"Not X but Y" pattern overuse

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

totalMatches

per1kWords

2.833

wordCount

1059

matches

0	"not a wall, exactly, but a promise"
1	"not really, or there was, but it moved like water seen from beneath the surface, pearled"
2	"not fear, exactly, but its quieter cousin"

51.72%

Overuse of "that" (subordinate clause padding)

Target: ≤2% sentences with "that" clauses

thatCount

totalSentences

matches

0	"let that be"
1	"meant that this"

100.00%

Paragraph length variance

Target: CV ≥0.5 for paragraph word counts

totalParagraphs

mean

39.22

std

34.78

0.887

sampleLengths

0	96
1	33
2	36
3	74
4	11
5	5
6	10
7	116
8	5
9	42
10	89
11	3
12	2
13	51
14	79
15	41
16	15
17	90
18	3
19	23
20	4
21	9
22	73
23	5
24	29
25	84
26	31

80.78%

Passive voice overuse

Target: ≤2% passive sentences

passiveCount

totalSentences

matches

0	"been planted"
1	"were gone"
2	"was meant"

100.00%

Past progressive (was/were + -ing) overuse

Target: ≤2% past progressive verbs

pastProgressiveCount	0
totalVerbs	144
matches	(empty)

0.00%

Em-dash & semicolon overuse

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

emDashCount

semicolonCount

flaggedSentences

totalSentences

ratio

0.155

matches

0	"The oaks marked the boundary the way tombstones mark a grave—not a wall, exactly, but a promise that something had ended and something else had begun."
1	"The wildflowers came first—drifts of them, blue and gold and a violet so deep it looked bruised, growing in patterns too deliberate to be wild, spiraling out from the roots of the standing stones like they'd been planted by someone who understood geometry better than gardening."
2	"She looked up—there was no sky, not really, or there was, but it moved like water seen from beneath the surface, pearled and shifting, throwing down light that came from no single direction and cast no shadows at all."
3	"Nyx, beside her, seemed to notice it too; they went very still, the way a person goes still when they step into a room and realize the mirror doesn't show their reflection."
4	"\"I feel absent,\" Nyx answered, and there was something in their whisper-voice she hadn't heard before—not fear, exactly, but its quieter cousin."
5	"The path—if it was a path, if the ground had decided to make walking easier for them out of some obscure courtesy—wound between trees whose bark shimmered faintly, silver-green, and whose leaves chimed very softly when the air moved through them, a sound like struck crystal heard from underwater."
6	"Not far away—gone, swallowed by trees that hadn't been there a moment ago, or had always been there and only now permitted themselves to be seen."
7	"It was perfectly still, black as the space between stars, and standing at its edge Rory could see no reflection of herself, no reflection of Isolde, no reflection of the strange nacreous sky—only, faint and slow, the reflection of somewhere else entirely: a room with candlelight, a chair by a window, rain against glass."
8	"Nyx crouched at the pool's far edge, their violet eyes—the only true color on them now, everything else gone to smoke and suggestion—fixed on the black water with an intensity that made Rory's skin prickle."

81.97%

Purple prose (modifier overload)

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

wordCount	858
adjectiveStacks	0
stackExamples	(empty)
adverbCount	52
adverbRatio	0.06060606060606061
lyAdverbCount	17
lyAdverbRatio	0.019813519813519812

100.00%

Repeated phrase echo

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

totalSentences	58
echoCount	0
echoWords	(empty)

100.00%

Sentence length variance

Target: CV ≥0.4 for sentence word counts

totalSentences

mean

18.26

std

14.28

0.782

sampleLengths

0	26
1	29
2	3
3	13
4	25
5	22
6	11
7	36
8	46
9	28
10	7
11	4
12	5
13	10
14	19
15	39
16	11
17	2
18	13
19	32
20	5
21	22
22	20
23	3
24	49
25	37
26	3
27	2
28	51
29	7
30	5
31	26
32	4
33	37
34	27
35	14
36	15
37	22
38	54
39	4
40	10
41	3
42	10
43	13
44	4
45	9
46	35
47	11
48	17
49	10

63.79%

Sentence opener variety

Target: ≥60% unique sentence openers

consecutiveRepeats	3
diversityRatio	0.41379310344827586
totalSentences	58
uniqueOpeners	24

0.00%

Adverb-first sentence starts

Target: ≥3% sentences starting with an adverb

adverbCount	0
totalSentences	39
matches	(empty)
ratio	0

86.67%

Pronoun-first sentence starts

Target: ≤30% sentences starting with a pronoun

pronounCount

totalSentences

matches

0	"She looked up—there was no"
1	"She noticed that last part"
2	"They went deeper."
3	"Her pulse ticked up."
4	"She thought of the Heartstone"
5	"she admitted, because it was,"
6	"They came, after a time"
7	"It was perfectly still, black"
8	"She didn't recognize it."
9	"She had the unsettling sense"
10	"they said slowly"
11	"They rose instead, shadow reassembling"
12	"She stepped back instead."

ratio

0.333

0.00%

Subject-first sentence starts

Target: ≤72% sentences starting with a subject

subjectCount

totalSentences

matches

0	"The oaks marked the boundary"
1	"Rory counted them as she"
2	"The air changed."
3	"That was the only way"
4	"The air changed, like walking"
5	"Isolde said, though she'd already"
6	"Nyx murmured, their voice a"
7	"The wildflowers came first—drifts of"
8	"Rory crouched to touch one"
9	"Isolde said without turning"
10	"Rory straightened fast enough that"
11	"She looked up—there was no"
12	"She noticed that last part"
13	"Nyx, beside her, seemed to"
14	"Nyx answered, and there was"
15	"They went deeper."
16	"The path—if it was a"
17	"Rory found herself listening for"
18	"Rory looked back the way"
19	"The standing stones were gone."

ratio

0.949

0.00%

Subordinate conjunction sentence starts

Target: ≥2% sentences starting with a subordinating conjunction

subConjCount	0
totalSentences	39
matches	(empty)
ratio	0

0.00%

Technical jargon density

Target: ≤6% sentences with technical-jargon patterns

analyzedSentences

technicalSentenceCount

matches

0	"The wildflowers came first—drifts of them, blue and gold and a violet so deep it looked bruised, growing in patterns too deliberate to be wild, spiraling out fr…"
1	"Rory crouched to touch one and found it warm, warmer than the air, as if it had swallowed a whole day of sunlight and hadn't finished digesting it."
2	"Not far away—gone, swallowed by trees that hadn't been there a moment ago, or had always been there and only now permitted themselves to be seen."
3	"Nyx crouched at the pool's far edge, their violet eyes—the only true color on them now, everything else gone to smoke and suggestion—fixed on the black water wi…"
4	"They rose instead, shadow reassembling itself into something more solid, more deliberately human-shaped, as though they'd decided this was not a place to be cau…"

100.00%

Useless dialogue additions

Target: ≤5% dialogue tags with trailing filler fragments

totalTags	12
uselessAdditionCount	0
matches	(empty)

38.89%

Dialogue tag variety (said vs. fancy)

Target: ≤10% fancy dialogue tags

totalTags

fancyCount

fancyTags

0	"Nyx murmured (murmur)"
1	"she admitted (admit)"
2	"the leaves chimed twice (chime)"

dialogueSentences

tagDensity

0.444

leniency

0.889

rawRatio

0.25

effectiveRatio

0.222

67.4698%