Yeah...I really think that no matter where it's set there's going to be research involved. I mean...even if I set it in my home town where I've lived almost all of my life, I would still have to do research on the setting because I don't know everything about it and I forget things. But it's easier because it gives you a starting point for that research.

Like I said, I think I'm going to leave it, and I've got the rough outline of my novel done...now I'm going back through and breaking things down to fill in the important details I'll need while writing so I don't get lost. If I decide to change it later....Well, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, I guess. >>; Thanks for all the help everyone.

Okay...there are a lot of comments to address, but I'm going to try to address as many as I can.

How much do you wanna bet this guy tried, and failed, to write commercial fiction?  That comment has "sour grapes" all over it.  

He's a poet, first of all, so it's really hard to get a lot of stuff out of him about prose type stuff. We had a novelist as the head of the department when I first went there (part of the reason I went there), but she transferred out before I even got to have a class with her and they brought in this guy. He's just a lit snob, partly, and he's also just...odd. He says that when he reads, he can't visualize what he's reading. It's just words on the page, so he's all about making it look good on the page and making the words sound good next to each other.

From your description, I think your story sounds sufficiently different from Jim's to make it OK.  PN Elrod has a vampire detective series set in Chicago, but the Depression-era setting makes it quite different from most urban fantasy currently on the market.  My advice is, don't get too hung up on stuff like this before you actually start writing; it'll only hold you back.  You can always go back and change it later if you think it necessary.

Yeah, that's kind of what I'm thinking. I'm just going to make sure I tread the line carefully. And really, I'm not going to be able to get a lot of good feedback on it until it's written, so yeah. If I have to change it later, so be it.

Or is one of the types who believe the only "real" stuff out there is anything considered literature.  I had a couple professors like this in college. 
...
Something I discovered, that would've been helpful before college instead of learning afterward, is that it would've been a good idea to look up the CW professors to see what they've done and how open they'd be to genre.  Oh well.  I wrote something like 12 chapters in the one class, even though the prof graded only the first 25 pages, and gave me a C.

Yeah, I've really just kind of gotten screwed. One, I was the first child to go to college and I didn't shop around as much as I should have. I settled on this school because I liked the school and the program seemed really legit, but then the professors have since all juggled around and the one good one I had is never around to talk to anymore. I'm trying to set up an email dialogue with him, but it's proving difficult. Oh, if I could turn back time. Sadly, by the time I realized this was probably a poor choice for what I want to do, I had my degree basically done and I don't have the money to spend if I were to transfer. I'll be graduating in one more semester, so yeah. Hindsight is 20-20.

GRRRRR.  Still--you can learn something from anyone.  Wring him/her dry of what you can and then discard. your purpose is to improve your craft. Remember, you may one day have to work with an editor that you can't stand.  It's good practice.  Also, you'd be amazed what even this idiot's recommendation might mean on your resume/bio--so bump that C to an A next time, get the creeps notice and play them for everything you can get out of them.

I'm not normally so mercenary, but time is prescious---don't lose it because you don't like the instructor.  And frankly, this jerk deserves the mercenany treatment...

Yeah, I've done my major project there and I learned a lot from him and the other faculty. I just don't know how much of it is applicable for what I want to do. He does have a lot of interesting advice, it's just not usually topical. I've been trying to treat it like an exercise. Do what he says and while I'm doing it, try to find ways to apply it to what I really want to do. I'm going to try to get some more out of everyone before I graduate, but I'm starting to look elsewhere to improve my craft.

My vote would be "write where you know"; there are plenty of people out there for whom the bits of getting Chicago wrong that Jim not being a Chicago native has put in the books are things to grumble about, and on the contrary, it's really cool when someone writes about a setting you know well yourself and gets it right.

I think I'm going to leave it for now and if nothing else, change it later. I'm not a Chicago native, but I go to college within 40 minutes of there, so I've been down there a lot. I'm actually setting the majority of the story in the suburbs north of Chicago, which is where I live when I'm at school, with a detour up into Milwaukee, and then parts of it in Chicago, too. If I write a sequel (and I'd like to, but I don't want to get ahead of myself) it would probably be mostly in Chicago, but that's then, this is now. I want to be able to get the details right, which is why I want to use the area.

Oh, and about the road trip thing, since I won't be near the school this summer do to poor job market, I won't be able to road trip down there as easily, but I'm planning on trying to get down there at least once so I can check up on any issues that come up in the novel. If nothing else, most of my friends live in that area, so I can always call them and be like "Hey, can you drive over here and tell me what you see?"

Thanks for all the advice everyone. It's really helpful. Sorry for the long post...>>;

Is your work similar to JB's?

Well, they're both Urban Fantasies, so yes, in that respect they are. I'm sure he's also influenced a few other things in the story, just because his work is floating around in my subconscious, but I'd like to think they're different beasts.

Does it fit into the "supernatural detective" genre?

This one's harder, because I guess it depends on how we're categorizing "supernatural detective." The story revolves around vampires, not Wizards and company like the Dresden Files, and the main character isn't a cop, PI, detective, etc. by any sort of professional (or even unprofessional) means. He's more of a dilettante and politician and he doesn't get hired to investigate things or whatever. He's exiled from his home on a false charge because of political things and he's working against the main antagonist to stop his power play and get back home, but figuring out how to stop him involves some investigating, so there's that.

Well, my first thing is I like the whole magic to create not magic to destroy thing. I think you can create an interesting magic system just using that as a base concept. If that's the case, are there other forms of supernatural what-have you that is basically the flip side of the coin? I'm big on balanced forced and all of that, but I think if you're going to go with this using magic to create thing you're going to need to fully explore what all that means and set up some rules for it. What all do you want magic to be able to accomplish. What do you mean by create? Can you use spellcraft to completely build something from nothing but energy and will then? Would creating a fire column like we see Harry do fall under "create" as you're "creating" fire, even though the intent of the fire might be to destroy?

I think that's some food for thought in that department. As far as adding spice and so such...I generally look at a lot of mythology and metaphysics when I'm figuring out the nuts and bolts of magic. I'm also a neopagan, though, so I have a lot of references for energy channeling and all of that just kind of laying around my apartment. You could draw from things like the old Greek version of the elements and how everything is made from Earth, Fire, Wind, Water (and Spirit, too possibly) and find a way to incorporate that. There are a lot of sources, but that's somewhere to start with that.

And as far as the clones thing...speaking as an English major, really everything's been done before. It's not a good idea to blatantly rip other people off, but at least when I do stuff like this I usually start with a "Hm. I think I'd like my magic to work kind of like it does in this book, but I want to also work in this idea. And I really don't like this bit, or it doesn't work for what I want to do, so I'm going to get rid of that...and replace it with this...and then I like this idea from this other thing I read, so maybe I can do something like that..." Eventually you get to a point where you can still see influences from other sources, but you can't look at one specific source and go "You totally copied that!" *shrug* My advice there would be to give it time to cook in your own head. You'll put your own spin on everything without even realizing you're doing it, most likely.

I hope this helps some.

Thanks.  This seems like a great community, so I'm really happy to be here.