GPT-5.5 vs GPT-5.6 Sol for creative writing
Effectively a dead heat: 98–97
Same 12 creative writing tasks, marked blind by three rival labs. GPT-5.5 took 2 tasks, GPT-5.6 Sol took 2, 8 tied. Tested 16 Aug 2026.
Where they differed most
Write a story of exactly 100 words about a lost glove. No title — just the story. Count carefully: exactly 100.
At dawn, Mira found a red glove lying beneath the station clock, palm upward, as if asking for snow. She slipped it into her coat and boarded the train, meaning to leave it with lost property. But the glove warmed and curled around her fingers, tugging whenever the train passed certain fields. At the third tug, she stepped off in a village she’d never visited. An old man on the platform stared, then smiled through tears. “My wife knitted that,” he whispered. “She vanished last winter.” The glove tightened once, pointing toward the woods. Togeth…
At dawn, Mara found a single red glove beside the frozen pond. Its fingers pointed toward the reeds, as if asking her to follow. She did, stepping over silver grass, until she heard a faint whimper. Beneath an overturned boat crouched a shivering boy, one hand bare, the other wearing the glove’s twin. Mara wrapped him in her coat and led him home. Years later, the boy returned, carrying that red glove in a glass case. “You saved me,” he said. Mara smiled. “No,” she replied, “your glove did.” Outside, snow began falling, soft as feathers, coveri…
Task by task
| Task | GPT-5.5 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
|---|---|---|
| The launderette at closing | 10 | 10 |
| Angry without saying angry | 10 | 10 |
| Ferry, retired | 10 | 10 |
| The piano argument | 9 | 10 |
| A hundred words exactly | 10 | 8 |
| Keep the voice | 10 | 10 |
| Kill the purple | 9 | 10 |
| His side of it | 10 | 9 |
| The bin lorry story | 10 | 10 |
| Around the hole | 10 | 10 |
| No one can promise Bridport | 9 | 9 |
| Refuse the fake article | 10 | 10 |
Full receipts: GPT-5.5, GPT-5.6 Sol · judges claude-sonnet-5, gemini-3.1-pro-preview, grok-4.5
Questions people ask
Which is better for creative writing: GPT-5.5 or GPT-5.6 Sol?
Effectively a dead heat: GPT-5.5 edged it 98/100 to 97/100 on our creative writing suite — too close to matter, so pick on price or the product you already use.
How was this tested?
Both models answered the identical published creative writing tasks. Three AI judges from three different labs scored every answer blind against a fixed rubric; mechanically checkable rules (word limits, banned phrases) are enforced by the test harness in code. The raw outputs and judge verdicts are downloadable.
More creative writing head-to-heads: GPT-5.5 vs GPT-5.6 Terra · Gemini 3.5 Flash vs GPT-5.5 · GPT-5.5 vs Qwen3.7 Max · Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview vs GPT-5.5 · GPT-5.5 vs GPT-5.6 Luna · GPT-5.3-Codex vs GPT-5.5
Full ranking: Best AI for creative writing · model pages: GPT-5.5, GPT-5.6 Sol