In the air far above the men, a flickering light slowly expanded into a large top hat covering a large portion of the night sky. A pair of white gloves appeared and reached into the hat. With a large popping noise, the gloves faded, and out popped a smiling puppet man wearing a formal black and white tuxedo with long tails and a large top hat. He waved at them, and then an echoing, loud, clear, almost jovial tone declared, “Congratulations, occupants of planet 38634.” The large man in the sky tipped his top hat and then pointed a formal white gloved hand towards them.
Morgan tore his eyes away from the scene, thinking he was seeing things. Everyone else was staring into the sky just as he was. Frank’s mouth was set in a hard line. George was also staring up from his back on the loading dock. The entire scene was bathed in a pale blue light from the image in the sky.
A flickering light slowly expanded into a top hat, covering a large portion of the night sky above the men. A pair of white gloves appeared and reached into the hat. Then, with a large popping noise, the gloves faded, and a smiling puppet popped out, wearing a black-and-white tuxedo with long tails and his own top hat. He tipped his hat and waved at them, and then, in a loud, echoing, almost jovial tone, declared, “Congratulations, occupants of Planet 38634.”
Morgan thought he was hallucinating, but then noticed everyone else staring up at the sky, too. Frank and George appeared speechless as the hat above them bathed the scene in a pale, blue light.
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There’s not much point in specifying “In the air far above the men” since the reader knows this is happening in the sky, which, by its nature, is far above all of us.
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The original used the word “large” five times in a single paragraph. Since we know this event is taking up a large part of the sky, all the other instances of “large” can be left out.
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The author described the tuxedo as “formal”, but since tuxedos are nothing other than formal, this can be removed. The same mistake is repeated towards the end when the white glove is described as “formal”.
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The second paragraph needed a lot of work:
- It simply lists each action individually: Morgan did this, then everyone did that, then Frank, and then George. Consolidating these reactions helped the pacing considerably.
- “Morgan tore his eyes away from the scene, thinking he was seeing things.” The latter half of the sentence (“…thinking he was seeing things”) is weak, particularly for genre fiction. Changing this to “…thought he was hallucinating” is stronger and fits the tone better. Adding “…noticed everyone else staring…” pulls double-duty, since it improves flow and helps the reader infer that Morgan is no longer looking up.
- I’m not totally sure what “Frank’s mouth was set in a hard line” is supposed to mean, and considering George is only repeating the same action we’ve seen everyone else doing, it made more sense to have them both appear “speechless” to add some variety.
- “The entire scene was bathed in a pale blue light from the image in the sky” is a passive and bland sentence. I made this active and connected it with Frank and George’s reactions.