Quote Originally Posted by chromedome11
The other reason your version works better is there are fewer words. One of the most effective (and easiest) ways to edit a story is to see how many words you can take out without changing the meaning. Shorter sentences have more impact. As an example, you can improve the rewrite even more by taking out the word "there".
That's an excellent point. I read an quote by a very experienced and talented author on line who said, "I writes a story, then chop a third of it out". That does seems a little extreme. I guess it depends on how economical you are with your words to begin with.