Odd Suggestions and What Am I Supposed to do with Them?

Mytherea said:

From what I've been able to glean through reflection, I think he wanted it to have a time-constraint (an election is only a certain number of weeks long).

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A ticking clock can benefit most kinds of plot, but it is by no means required in every book. You still need to get to the bottom of why he thinks your book needs a ticking clock. Not enough tension? Not enough at stake?

Yet, I think either I forgot to mention it or he might've missed that there is a time-constraint: it will end before December 31st, because the character who's putting strain on everything buggers off and heads home, and without him, the plot (within the plot) falls apart.

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If time runs out, the conflict will just go away and everything will be back to normal? That's not the right kind of time constraint to have. The right kind is that if time runs out, the protagonist will be unable to achieve his goal. Maybe that's why your instructor thought you needed another time constraint. Are there characters in your story who will benefit if this character just goes away on December 31st? Is it in their power to stall until then? If so you have a plot hole unless you give them some reason not to be satisfied with the status quo.

There's always the possibility that the instructor has a political agenda (goodness no! An academic with a political obsession?) that makes him think that *all* books should end up "proving" that democracy is an illusion.

Mytherea said:

It is, somewhat in the vein of fantasy writers such as Robin Hobb, Lynn Flewelling, and George R. R. Martin (though perhaps not to Martin's extreme...), but set in a modern-day Chicago with minimal (but integral) magic and a lot of backstabbing plots and guns. I haven't really been able to find many people in-person who read what I read or have any experience with fantasy and/or urban fantasy. They either know the big-names, like Tolkien, or they know the stereotypes, like buttless leather chaps and a lot of vampire/werewolf/demon sex (not that I'm bashing either; Tolkien is one of my favorite writers and I have a whole shelf dedicated to good ol' vampire/werewolf/demon sex books).

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Jim Butcher seems to be doing fine with detective/wizard in modern Chicago with his Harry Dresden books.