[Feedback] Tito and Hench -- The First Practice [3412 words]

Could you tell me a little more about what the bigger picture is here? The context? The is a story about an alien rock concert, but why is this any different than a "normal" concert? I would advise against giving your readers a glossary. You should be able to effectively incorporate those words and their definitions into the story. Having a glossary (at least for a short story) turns me off as a reader and makes me wonder why you can't explain those words to me in the story.

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First of all, as a premise for a story, you're missing something. Your plot is just "band practice". It reads like it is part of something much larger, though, so I'm not going to nitpick about that part of the story.

The world is interesting. I like the way you dropped reptilian and the name repton; without a lot of heavy exposition. You show an alien race that lives in the everyday world but you don't make it a big deal. That's nice.

I think it the story is funny. It's funny that you show a critique of the music from Otto's perspective. But back to the plot: if we agree the climax is when Otto admits he likes the music (considering most of the story leads up to his entrance), then the story is definitely missing something, because that's incredibly cliche or boring.

I don't know what it is missing.

I'd like to see more observations from the narrator like this:

Rocky looked up from his data-wallet. He gave a blank stare and waved before returning to his data-wallet. Rackham rolled his eyes and sighed.

Definitely give me more info about the data wallet (I'm assuming it is like a smartphone?)

Here's a rewrite of the data-wallet part, where I show you what I mean by "I'd like to see more observations from the narrator."

Rocky raised his head from the data-wallet. Detecting his eyes had left the screen, it dimmed. His eyes met Rackham, who sighed. Rocky relit the screen by gazing back down at it.

What I did was show the "mind of the narrator". I followed his eyes from the screen, to Rackham's face, and back to the screen. I wrote it that way because in my mind, that's how I kept up with the details. I was "noticing" his eyes, and that made it into the story. For you, make sure you're actively writing or thinking while you're writing. Try following a detail in the narrative, and make it do something surprising.

During my half-assed writing lesson, I thought you need to revise some sentence structures like this one:

The nightclub was compact, covered with stickers, autographed pictures, and stank of spilled spirits.

I don't like this sentence because it is a list. I would've stopped reading if I were an acquiring editor

Great ideas. I'd like to see some other media like a comic book set in this world!