The order of words tends to have grammatical restrictions that don't allow for you to change this. Everything else however, especially for a first draft, can/should be changed.

The idea behind reading aloud is that by hearings one's words read out loud, one notices what sounds good what doesn't. For me, it takes a few days before I can see these "errors" in my writing, so make sure to give it some time, before returning to writing. Here a few, more or less, objective guidelines:

• Every consecutive sentence should be of different length. This keeps the writing interesting and engaging, and excites the reader because they won't know what comes next.

• Replacing simple words with more complex ones is good, but don't overdo it; Often, the simplest words are best. If the complex word does serve any other purpose than to tick off the requirement, replace it with a simpler one. Else, choose the right complex word (e.g. I ran/walked/stampeded/speeded/wandered/trudged to school). Also make sure that you don't use the same complex verbs twice in a paragraph, unless it makes more sense that it's the same (I used simple multiple times to underline the duality of complex vs simple words)

• That being said, when you have a sentence starting with a conjunctive, do not allow the next few sentences start with one as well.

• Unless several paragraphs have passed, do not use the same conjunctives (while, although, yet, and, etc.). I am guilty of this myself, and it's tough to go around this sometimes.

• Use few adverbs (astonishingly, guiltily, happily), and instead say what a character does/scenery is, that makes it astonishing, or guilty or happy. Again, tough, but in my experience, most of my edits are because of this rule.

• Another way to improve flow is for every sentence to be followed by a sentence that describes what the reader is interested in next. I know you may want to hear an example for this, so I would, for example, dedicate this sentence to giving you one.

I haven't read your manuscript, so I cannot give you more feedback. But these guidelines take me very far in improving my writing.

The order of words tends to have grammatical restrictions that don't allow for you to change this. Everything else however, especially for a first draft, can/should be changed.

The idea behind reading aloud is that by hearings one's words read out loud, one notices what sounds good and what doesn't. For me, it takes a few days before I can see these "errors" in my writing, so make sure to give it some time, before returning to writing. Here a few, more or less, objective guidelines:

• Every consecutive sentence should be of different length. This keeps the writing interesting and engaging, and excites the reader because they won't know what comes next.

• Replacing simple words with more complex ones is good, but don't overdo it; Often, the simplest words are best. If the complex word does not serve any other purpose than to tick off the requirement, replace it with a simpler one. Else, choose the right complex word (e.g. I ran/walked/stampeded/speeded/wandered/trudged to school). Also make sure that you don't use the same complex verbs twice in a paragraph, unless it makes more sense when it's the same (I used the word "simple" multiple times to underline the duality of complex vs simple words)

• That being said, when you have a sentence starting with a conjunctive, do not allow the next few sentences start with one as well.

• Unless several paragraphs have passed, do not use the same conjunctives (while, although, yet, and, etc.). I am guilty of this myself, and it's tough to go around this sometimes.

• Use few adverbs (astonishingly, guiltily, happily), and instead say what a character does/scenery is, that makes it astonishing, or guilty or happy. Again, tough, but in my experience, most of my edits are because of this rule.

• Another way to improve flow is for every sentence to be followed by a sentence that describes what the reader is interested in next. I know you may want to hear an example for this, so I would, for example, dedicate this sentence to giving you one.

I haven't read your manuscript, so I cannot give you more feedback. But these guidelines take me very far in improving my writing.