Researching my novel

I'm halfway thru the second revision of my first novel. My teacher told me, correctly, I should flesh out one of my characters, Angel Guerrero, who hails from Ecuador. He's one of those self-made Americans who comes up with an idea and thru hard work and innate business sense does well. His job? He owns his own line-striping company.

What, you may ask, is that? Well, my Scottie, long before he worked at SEPTA owned his own such business. A hard worker with an innate business sense, he went broke and it took a couple years to pay off his debts. His partner's wife embezzled the company funds and used them to buy drugs.

I went online to see what line-striping machines look like. Scott still has the machines in his garage. But good ole Dan Zurcher of American Line Striping tells us that for an initial investment of two to four-thousand dollars we, too, can make a living by line-striping. Thanks for the great idea, Dan. I think I'll pass.

Because I can do anything I want in my novel, within reason, I have Irv Kravitz, psychiatrist, give my main character a signed copy of Alice Miller's Drama of a Gifted Child. Irv had the great pleasure of meeting Alice, who's now 91, at a conference in Zurich.

You can make these outrageous claims in a novel and get away with them.