Don't Write Like This

Here's a terrible short fantasy story I found online.  Rumor has it that it repeatedly won a contest for worst fantasy story.  It's certainly a bad bit of prose:

The Eye of Argon

Read more about it at Wikipedia (seriously, there's an entry there for nearly everything).

Read a Mystery Science Theater 3000 style take on the story here.  (Side note: this appears to have its origin in a Usenet group.  Anyone remember Usenet?  I do.  But then I'm 34 years old.)

So, you might ask, what's wrong with this story.  Here are just a few of the worst aspects.  Feel free to add your own in the comments:

• too many freaking thesaurus words -- makes it way too hard to read (and remember, I have an Ivy League education...I know the meanings of the words, but the sentences sure as hell don't flow naturally off the page)
• impossible verbs in speaker attributions
• not sure how well it would work to enamel a hide shield
• no proofreading (the person who posted this noted s/he tried to preserve the original typos)
• referring to a woman as a "complexion"
• unpronounceable names (Mifrk, Grignr, Agafnd)
• too much description (why use one word when three phrases will do, must have been the author's philosophy)

Well, I can't actually bear to read the whole thing.  But you have the link above if you want it.  Don't say I haven't warned you.