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. 487
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. 487