Ep. 248 CREATE QUIRKY CHARACTERS?

Hey there, Mark Brown. Oh, wait, Mark isn't here. He's in China. We have a quirky character with us, Chris McGuire, and we're gonna talk about quirky characters. You wanna be unforgettable, Your stories need to be unforgettable. If your stories are gonna be unforgettable, we need quirky characters. Chris, what's your initial thoughts on this?

Well, Darren, I just think every time you introduce a character in your story, you have an opportunity for humor. And the easiest way to do that is to explore. What about that person is unique or exaggerated? Like, what about your mom? What is it about your mom that's funny? What is it about your dad that's funny? What is it about your spouse that's funny? Things like that, every time you introduce them, you have an opportunity to create a relatable quirk with the audience.

Yeah. And when I bring this up, even with seasoned pros, I've gotten the feedback from a hall of fame speaker yesterday. Like, huh. I never considered that. And I think this is critical to get engagement in your story. If you want your stories to be good, they gotta be engaged. What draws us in? It's not just a woman. It's not just a man. It's not just your uncle. But what is it about them? So we're gonna dive in to quirky characters.

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? Difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the Unforgettable Presentations podcast with your hosts, world champion speakers and coaches, Mark Brown.

Mark Brown, your life tells a story, and there's someone out there who needs to hear it.

And Darren Lacroix. And Darren Lacroix.

Stage time. Stage time. Stage time.

Ready for some powerful presentation. AHAs. Let's dive right in.

All right, Chris McGuire.

We have a big studio audience here today.

Chris McGuire is stepping in for Mark Brown as he's on the road. And I just love this subject. I love this idea. We. We all know that we need characters in our stories, but are the stories compelling? Well, how could we make them funnier? How could we make them more engaging? Well, one of the secrets we have. Chris McGuire here, comedy writer, friend, mentor. If you ever heard the story of me walking into a comedy show that very first night, we working up the courage. Shy, quiet introvert, Darren quirky character walks up to Chris. Hi, my name is Darren. I want to try this. What do I need to do? Chris said, are you funny? I said, no. Which is, by the way, Chris, a twist. We Talk about the comedy twist later on. But anyway, Chris is that guy. So he has been the head writer for Arsenalio hall for 158 shows. He has done his time, produced the Martha Stewart Snoop Dogg TV show, the actual producer of it. And Chris McGuire, thanks for being here. Let's just dive right into quirky characters.

Let me. My bad.

So if you're listening to this, we're gonna describe the story.

Yeah, we'll describe.

If you wanna watch it on YouTube, you can check it out on YouTube. The YouTube version.

Chris, why quirky characters? Well, first of all, every character that you introduce, you have an opportunity for humor, so you can take. And humor is more engaging. Humor, connect audience. Quirky characters create memorable moments in your stories. And when the characters have familiar traits, they enhance relatability with your audience. That's the thing where somebody in the crowd goes, oh, I know someone like that too. Right? You're making that connection. So they have the ability to increase engagement and they can turn. They just help punch up your. Your speeches. So let's talk a minute about character traits versus quirks. Okay, so character traits are the things about your character that make them memorable. Like that they're brave or they're smart or they're loyal. Quirky characters, their traits are exaggerated. They tend to be a little more unusual or at least unexpected. And that adds the opportunity for humor and intrigue in your story. So qualities like odd, obsessive, or they live in their own world. So in public speaking, the important thing is to base your quirky characters in reality. And Darren, you know, I, I use this term all the time. Don't take your audience to crazy town. Please don't take them too fast.

Yeah. This is so important. So when we're saying base it in reality, that there's some truth to it. We exaggerate a little, but not over the top. And even if the person is literally over the top, we have to be careful that the audience doesn't check out or call BS on your idea or on the character. So we want to make it exaggerated so it's relatable. But when Chris says, not to crazy Town. So when Chris. I hired Chris to write some jokes for me when I was speaking to CEOs in Spain, and I had one joke about the. The batteries in Las Vegas that your battery, just to give a specific example, I said, you guys would love Las Vegas because your battery only lasts three and a half months before you need to buy a new one. And Chris is like, don't go to Crazy Town because that's extreme exaggeration. So it's more like six and a half months. Reality is it lasts a year or two and that's it. So we want to exaggerate it but not go to quote unquote, crazy town. And now that creates a questionability of your whole story. Just because one fact was in crazy.

Town a little too close to crazy town. And you mentioned that that was auto parts people that you were talking to.

I. Oh yeah. I did not mention that.

Yeah, so like they basically sold. They sell replacement batteries. So the joke for Darren to connect them is that batteries wear out in Los Angeles, in Las Vegas really quickly because it's hot, which is something I didn't know again, I just flagged it for him. I'm saying be careful of this one because feels like it might feel like crazy town to them because they're experts. So anyway, that's. That's crazy town. That's another lesson for another day. Let's talk about character quirks. Darren. I'm going to go over four or five types of character quirks. The first one is distinctive habits and behavior. I'm going to start with some pop culture fictitious people because that's shorthand with the audience. But I'm also going to talk about real people too, which is more relevant to speakers because you're going to be talking about real people. So the first distinctive habits, quirky character type guy that I like to mention is Dwight Schrute from the Office. He's crazy devoted to this silly job. He's obsessed with survival tactics and he loves martial arts. And he doesn't look like he would be a martial arts guy, but he's an extremely memorable character. Like he's probably one of the quirkiest characters in sitcom history. And that's because they chose really funny quirky characteristics for him. Another character in real life with distinctive habits and behavior, Albert Einstein. Albert Einstein has crazy hair. You can't see the photo here, but it's the famous one of him sticking his tongue out. He's actually seems like a crazy, lovable, absent minded guy, even though he's absolutely brilliant. And when he was working out problems, Darren, did you know he used to play the violin when he was stuck?

I did not know that.

Yeah, and that kind of helped his process all those things. If you walk in and this guy's standing in front of a blackboard with a long mathematical equation and he's playing the violin, that creates an image in your mind that's sticky. Steve Jobs, Same thing. Steve Jobs, just like Einstein, wore the same clothes every day. Same type of clothes. He had the same outfit. Jobs had closets of black turtlenecks because he didn't want the mental bandwidth of having to figure out what to wear every day. So he wore the same thing. Same thing with, like, Mark Zuckerberg and the hoodies. Unusual interests or hobbies. Here's another way into a quirk, right? So, like on Parks and Rec, Leslie Knope, Amy Poehler's character, is passionate about waffles, and she loves really detailed scrapbooking. These are just fun little quirks that make that character, that help, in addition to other things, make the character memorable. Mike Tyson, this is one of my favorite ones, is, like, when I found this out, I just started laughing. I'm like, what do you mean? Mike Tyson raises pigeons, but Mike Tyson rages. I mean, Mike Tyson is one of the quirkiest figures in pop culture. He's got the tattoo on his face, he's got that funny voice, smokes a lot of marijuana, and he raises pigeons. So these are all qualities about Mike Tyson that make him an interesting character. And Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift has a weird hobby that I didn't know about, which is she makes DIY snow globes. Did you know that, Darren?

I didn't until you brought it up earlier.

No, I didn't know that either. And it was like, I just was googling, like, famous people with odd hobbies, and that came up, and that was just something I. That kind of makes sense, but doesn't make sense at the same time. But it adds texture to her personality.

Yeah. Chris, just going back to. Here's the purpose. Like, when you talked about Parks and Rec char that she is detailed scrapbooker, I immediately thought of my sister. So we think of people that we know who have that same hobby, interest, obsession, and that's what draws us in. Oh, she has a characteristic like my sister, like, that draws you in, and that's what we're talking about. Don't let your characters be vanilla. Make them quirky, and they're more likely to open the audience's mind and go with you.

Absolutely. And, you know, just things like Taylor Swag. There's probably not a lot of people out there that raise pigeons, but what's funny about that is it just goes in absolute, like, contrast of what you think about Mike Tyson is that he, you know, that he's gently raising pigeons. You know, Taylor Swift. It's that type of thing. Like, there are a lot of people out there that do DIY stuff. And they're like, oh, wow, that's cool. I didn't know. She's like me. So, again, engagement, all that stuff.

Hey, Chris, while you're talking here, I just looked that up in the background.

Yeah.

Tom Hanks, I don't know if you know this or not, has a thing for vintage typewriters.

Yes, I knew that. I knew that about him.

Wow.

Yeah, he likes vintage typewriters. So he's got, like, a bunch of them around the house. We've got a bunch of empty wine bottles that are, like, memorable for one reason or not. You know, like, they're. They're old, they could be rare or whatever that we were given as gifts. And we've got them around. And sometimes I think it makes us look like drunks or crazy people. So eccentric speak patterns is the third character. Twerk, quirk or twerk. Mr. Burns from the Simpsons obviously speaks in a very, very specific way. Right. And he's a cartoon character. And of course, cartoon characters are going to be more exaggerated. But Bill Shatner is a real guy. And William Shatner talks like Captain Kirk. He talks dramatically. When I met him, I was. I. He was. I did. I worked on his roast, and it was, like, a joy to meet him because I'm such a huge fan. Yeah. And I was just delighted to find out that he talked like Captain Kirk. Ozzy Osbourne. Between the stammering, the stuttering and the swearing and the accent and everything, those are the things that make Ozzy a memorable and iconic character. And these are, you know, these are real people. And again, you have real people in your lives that have eccentricities, that have these fun quirks. And all we're doing here is showing you that they exist out there. They probably exist for you. You just have to uncover them. Physical traits. This is one Willy Wonka. This could be fashion, or this could be an actual physical trait. But, you know, definitely fashion is a thing where, you know, Willy Wonka wears his. What is that purple waistcoat and the big bow ties and the crazy top hat. And when you think of Willy Wonka, that's kind of what you think. You think of what he looks like.

Even when they remade the movie. Same thing, same thing.

It's iconic. It's iconic. It's one of those things that's a quirky trait that's sticky. Like, if you saw Willy Wonka a thing with Willy Wonka and he wasn't wearing the top hat, you'd be like, where's the top hat?

Exactly.

Lady Gaga. I mean, everywhere she Goes, she looks like she's going to the Met Gala. She's always got some kind of distinctive outfit or crazy makeup or whatever. But that's, you know, one of the things when you think about Lady Gaga, like, in your head, you're thinking, the meat dress or something she wore at the Met Gala or something. And then there's physical, big physicality, like Shaquille o'. Neal. For those of you who. Who are listening, this is a photo of Shaquille o' Neal getting out of a smart car. And I love this photo because it just really says exaggeration. This guy, 7 foot 2, very large man, getting out of a tiny, tiny car.

And Chris is a quirk. Yeah. And you met him. Chris, right.

I did. I did. I met. I met Shaq. He was super great. And when I shook his hand, like, you know, my hand disappeared in his hand, like, his hand is so big. So these are. He's so big that it's just, you know, it becomes a character quirk. And it's one of the things you think about when you think about Shaq is he's a big dude. And the last one, in terms of character quirks, although there are others out there, these are ones I'm just featuring, but idiosyncratic worldviews. So the. The best example of this from popular culture is Phoebe from Friends. Every joke about Phoebe was about how she looked at the world differently and that she was a. Had a quirky way of. Of looking at things. Like, she kind of lived in her own world. That is a very sticky quality. And every time she opened her mouth, it was funny because she just had an interesting way of looking at things, and it contrasted with her more conservative friends. And by conservative, I mean, like, normal. Elon Musk obviously has a lot of, you know, a really, really unique worldview, whether it's about sustainable energy or electric cars or going to Mars. He just looks at the world differently. He solves problems differently. So when you're describing somebody that's got a different worldview, it really lends itself to humor, particularly if they're looking at the world in a different way. Andy Warhol is my last example here. You know, he. He looked at normal things, like, they could be art, like a soup, a can of soup, or something like that. And he's a quirky character. He had the hair, the outfits, all that stuff. And he had a really interesting way of looking at the world that, like, everybody's going to be famous for 15. And, boy, he was right about that. So Darren all these characters look at the world differently, and that's what makes them surprising and entertaining.

Yeah. To bring it back to you, think of. Could it be a physical characteristic of one of your characters? Use this as a checklist. Use this podcast as a checklist where you can literally go through and ask, oh, is there any physical characteristics? Is there any fashion characteristics? Because you give us a fashion characteristic. You know, wear a top hat. Well, you don't see that nowadays. That would stand out. Maybe it's a bowler.

It's. I have. I have a friend who's, like, really into comic books, and he's a grown man, and he always. I don't think I have ever seen him wear anything that didn't have a comic book character on the. On his T shirt.

But that would get. And we know people like that. What we're talking about is making it relatable, but bringing a visual aspect to your character. So when the listener is engaged in your story, they create a word picture. They create a picture in their mind which gets them to lean into your stories, to lean into your presentation. So make no mistake, this can be fun, but it really can make you unforgettable, Chris.

Absolutely. And, you know, people remember. You know, you know this, Darren, you teach this about creating an image in the audience's mind, creates memorability and engagement, and that's what character quirks can do, particularly if you're talking about what they look like. Okay, let's keep going. We got. So here's how to use some quirky characters. I talk about. I. I did a speech a while back on my relationship with money, which could be a really mundane topic, but as the hook into the speech I used, I told some stories and some things about my mom, who was very, very, very frugal. And growing up, I remember her being extremely cheap. So, you know, this is a characteristic that a lot of us grew up with, with parents that were concerned about money or whatever and it. And. And how it affects us. But I just decided to talk about my mom and that quirk about her. So let's talk about tough skins. Darren, you and I need to talk about tough skins. This was these things where, if you don't know, Tuffskins, right. They were five bucks. They were 4.99. They came out in, like, the 70s. They were made with some kind. A Dacron, I think, some kind of polyester. And then what do you remember? Did you have to wear them as a kid? They would never rip was the big thing. They would never tear. So they'd last forever.

They would never tear. They had the cardboard knees. You could visually see the cardboard that was, like, glued on the inside and then that had that big rubber patch. It was like they were trying to look like Levi's but missed the mark. Gravely.

It looked like. Yeah, mutant Levi's, basically. But they would never. The main thing about them is they would never wear out. They were inexpensive, and so my mom always bought them because whatever, she had this, you know, terrified some irrational fear that I was going to rip my pants and then she'd have to buy new ones. And then, Darren, here's the thing about her. Not only did she buy the. The jeans so that, like, they'd last a long time, she made sure that I would never grow out of them. She would get, like, she would hem them, but they were like literally 4 inch. 4 inch hems on these things. So I. There was no way I could get rid of them. They were literally like a boomerang. They were there every morning. It was always there. I could not get rid of these damn things. And.

And then we'll just take them in so that way we can let them out later.

Oh, my God, that too.

And the length of the waist. And the length, absolutely.

So anyway, those are tough skins. And that's. This is from a post that I made, you know, which is that basically they, you know, you could throw a blowtorch on these things and they'd be fine. So when I'm writing a hook about my mom and I want to talk about her quirk, her frugality, you hear in your head, I'd say something like, my mom's so cheap. You hear in your head, how cheap was she? The old. The old Johnny Carson.

Carson line.

Yeah. So there are two joke formats you use, and then you write them, and then as you re. When you go through the rewriting process, you hide it so it doesn't. You don't sound like Johnny Carson. But in your mind, you're writing a she was so cheap that blank joke. Right. Or she was the type of hurt person who blank. And you can use this for yourself. Right. You could say, well, what you need to know about me is that I'm super cheap. I'm the type of person who blank. Or what you need to know about my mom is she's the type of person who blank. Okay. So it's just these two formats that you can use that help you mentally kind of fill in the blanks. So there's a humor boot camp thing, Darren, which is, you know, make a list of the real things about that characteristic. But the characteristic is frugality or they're cheap. Then start with a list of the things you remember about them that were like, oh, my God, I can't believe my mom's doing this. She's making me wear tough skins. She's. Oh, my God. She's reusing a tea bag. That's insane. She's reusing a tea bag. Oh, we were at the movies, and she showed up with. She brought her own popcorn. We can't even get popcorn here. I got to use the stale popcorn she brought. These are all real qualities that happen with my mom. And then from there, you exaggerate. But by the way, the real stuff is going to be funny. The real stuff is going to get the audience smiling, and it's going to get the audience engaged, and it's going to get people saying, my mom's like that, too. Oh, my dad was like that. Oh, my husband's cheap. All these things.

I hadn't thought about it in years, Chris, but the first time you started talking about this and writing these jokes, I could picture, I see the red rose teabag on my mom's kitchen table, the marble kitchen table in the spoon. Cause she's saving it because she's gonna reuse it at lunchtime. So she'd have a tea for breakfast and tea for lunch using the same tea. I can see it.

It's so funny. And I get it. And this is not any judgment. It's funny to me. You know what I mean? And it's something I remember, and it's something distinctive. You know, that's the main thing is the other thing about quirky characters, Darren, is it makes your speech more unique to you, right? So if you're, you know, a lot of people talk on similar topics like leadership or team building or whatever, you want to have all. You want to have it all feel like you, you know, you want to have it feel like you're the only one who could be telling this story. And this is the way you do that. You do it with real details about people in your life and little things like you described with, like, yeah, she left the tea bag on the table, or she had a special plate for it or whatever it is. You know what I mean? Like, those little details are funny, and they're quirky, and they, like, create something in the audience's mind. So back to my mom. So again, make lists. I want to go back on that. When you're writing this kind of a joke, or this kind of. This kind of humor. You make lists. You make lists of the real things that they do, and then you exaggerate them. So one way. One way you can do an exaggeration is compare them to, like, the archetype in the world that you think of when you mention that characteristic. If you're talking about somebody who's just like a toddler, that's indestructible. You know what I mean? Like that, you know, falls down but still gets back up and all that. Compare them to Superman. They are invincible. Like Superman with my mom. And I'm talking about frugality. I'm going to make a list of people from pop culture that are known as being extremely cheap. Like Ebenezer Scrooge, Lucille Bluth from Arrested, Ron Swanson from Parks and Rec, Jeff Green from Curb, or Mr. Burns. These are all touchstones. And you pick something. I decided to go with Ebenezer Scrooge because everybody knows Ebenezer Scrooge, and everybody knows that he's the cheap guy. So then you write a. You make a connection. Okay? Now, the connection could be really simple, Darren. You could just say, like, oh, my God, she'd give Ebenezer Scrooge a run for his money.

Right?

You know what I mean? Could be that simple. And now you've created something in the audience's mind. I went a little more detailed with it because I'm a comedy writer, but you don't have to go this detail. But for me, this is how I use those techniques. I just said, my mom is so cheap, and she's the type of person who. So the first one is, my mom's the type of person who reuses teabags and sneaks popcorn into movie theaters. All true. Now I'm going to exaggerate a little bit. If my mom. I'm creating a fake scenario. If my mom wrote the summary for A Christmas Carol, it would have read, a savvy businessman named Scrooge gets bullied by three ghosts into giving a deadbeat clerk an exorbitant. So that's like how my mom. I'm saying it's not how she really sees it. But if you create that, my mom's so cheap, she looks at Scrooge and says, what do you mean he's cheap? Something simple like that. Then I went even further. My mom, so cheap. Back in the day, when she heard yo mama so cheap jokes, she thought they were money making tips. She thought, wow, those are. Those are really good ideas. I should use a firefly. To light the house, and instead of buying a fire alarm, I should just hang Jiffy Pop from the ceiling. So that's the idea here is just start real, build to absurdity, and don't go to crazy town too fast.

Chris, One idea, too, for the things that we teach is using dialogue is you could actually go back to the line you had. Instead of saying, she sneaks popcorn into movie theaters, we could create a scenario where she said, chris, shh. Don't tell him about the popcorn in my purse. Exactly as you walked into a. And then a famous movie from your childhood that you would have went to the movie theaters to see. So you can take these ideas and go one more, too.

If it's a.

For your stories, absolutely.

You could do like. Let me tell you about my mom. I walked into the kitchen one day and there was a teabag on the. A used tea bag on a little plate. I picked it up to throw it out. She goes, what are you doing? I'm gonna use that. You just. You create a scene.

You don't know how much it is.

You could do it as a joke, or you could do it as a little scene.

Do you know how much tea cost?

You know how much tea costs?

You're under.

You're under that tea bag.

When. When you have your own roof and your own house, you can throw.

You can throw out tea bags. There are people in third world countries that don't have tea bags. What else? Comedic twist. Let's talk about that real quick. Which is how do you. How to use the expectations you create for a character and create some humor out of it? Those who are watching, let's talk about twists. All right, so what is a twist in a story? You've all heard that it's a plot twist. It's something you didn't expect. It's a sharp change in the story that subverts the audience's expectations. And in humor, surprise creates laughter. Okay, so in the very simple examples I'm going to give you, it usually involves something you or another character don't know about each other. So what I'm going to teach you is that, you know, what I'm going to talk about here is actually, it's a magic trick. And once you learn the trick, it's going to seem super obvious to you. And you can be like, but the audience doesn't know the trick. That's why this works. If you're like, my wife is like, sees twists coming a mile away. So if we're watching something on tv, she'll be like, oh, he's really the boss. Oh, she's really the murderer. Whatever. She sees it coming a mile away because she's written five books, you know. But the average audience will not see this coming. It's a magic trick that you can use over and over again. Just don't overuse it. Okay, so here's a couple examples. First one's misdirection. So you create an assumption about a situation and then you subvert it. So for example, let's say you're saying you're making a confession. Like it's, maybe it's the hook of your speech and you're making this confession. And you said, and I was talking to Max, and I said, max, I'm so sorry that this isn't working out with us or whatever. And maybe, maybe it's a breakup story. Maybe it's. You're, you're asking your boss, Max for a raise and you seem super confident, but then you reveal Max is a cat. Okay, you have severe, you have subverted the situation. You thought it was about somebody asking for a raise, but it's actually just somebody rehearsing to ask for a raise. That's a misdirection. This one is super easy to use and super fun. It's judging a book by its cover. It's literally like you set up a character's physical appearance and create an assumption in the audience's mind and then you subvert it. So let's say you're a cashier at a card shop and this really tough six foot biker dude, he's wearing a leather jacket, he's got a beard, and he hands up, hands a birthday card to he, he tries to buy a birthday card for his mom. And the cashier, you're the cashier, you look at it go, oh, that's a nice card. And then he just bursts into tears and talks about how much he loves his mom. We've subverted the toughness and revealed that he's emotional. Okay, so that's judging a book by his cover. We'll talk about that a little more in a minute. The inappropriate reaction is literally laughing at a funeral or crying at a birthday party. It's, it's some, it's creating the expectation of the place and what is acceptable and then doing something that's not acceptable. And then the unexpected expert is literally, I mean, I'm sure there's some of you folks that have kids and it's you sitting at your computer not knowing how it works. And then your nine year old Saying, it's easy, dad. And they know exactly how to do it.

I love that one.

It's super. The one I like to make is, it's the Mafia. It's the mafia character that knows everything about feral cats. So you're having a conversation about, I've got 10 stray cats in my backyard, I don't know what to do. And then some guy that looks like from the Sopranos just starts talking about, well, here's a list of five shelters you could take them to and, and. And get them fixed. Because you need to get them fixed or you're going to have a big problem. And so anyway, he has some level of expertise that you would never expect. So this is how this works. This is how you do it, guys. You create a scene. You start with at least two characters. You set the expectation for one of the characters and then you reveal the twist. This is the magic trick. If you set the expectation that they look poor, what if they're really rich? What if they look really rich, they turned out to actually be broke. What if they look like they're really informed, they're uninformed. What if they're an expert? They seem like an expert. They end up being a total fraud. They look weak, but they're actually really strong. They look tough, they're actually really sensitive. These are all the ways you can use twists in a story. You set the expectation of the character and then you subvert it. Let's try an example. Darren, let me play this one with you. You walk by a homeless guy sitting in the sidewalk, right? You just walk right by. You're a nice guy, you're like, hey, I got five bucks. I should give this guy five bucks. You walk back, you give him your last five bucks, he thanks you, but he gives you back your money. What's the twist?

Yeah, it's a guy, it's a millionaire. Who is. Has a hidden TikTok camera trying to find good people or something.

Absolutely. It could be a hidden camera bit or whatever. For me, I was like, I thought it would be fun if he gives the money back. And just then a limo pulls up and he gets in the back of the limo and then the driver comes out after 15 seconds while you're sitting there with your jaw open, and he just gives you $100. And then the window of the limo goes down and the homeless guy just gives you a thumbs up. Yes, he's really rich.

Or he says, I only take Apple Pay.

That's hilarious. Only take Apple pay. That's funny. The Other thing. I mean, like you mentioned a TikTok thing. This is exactly what hidden camera shows are. You set an expectation and you watch what happens when you subvert the expectation. Now that you know this trick, you're going to go. All the audience is going to see it coming. They're not going to because they don't know the trick. So the twist is the guy's rich. Let's move on to another one.

You got to sell the initial thought and especially if it was you in the story who didn't see it either. Now it is real because that's what you did think when you saw this person, this character. So you describe what you saw and thought and we hear your internal dialogue. So it is true because it was a twist on you. So we're not just saying, hey, make these things up. You could, but there's, you know, you got to have a true life purpose behind it. Chris.

Sure. No, no, no. Like, let's take. Let's take the tea bag example, right? Your mom reusing the tea bag. What if you walk in the kitchen, you see her Fendi bag or her Birkin bag or something like that. Next to it is a plate with a teabag on it. You pick up the teabag to go to throw it out, and she says, what are you doing? I'm going to reuse that. So you think she's rich, but she actually is cheap. Just another way to do it. Yep. Here's another example. You notice an old man is being hassled by some gangbangers. Darren. You step up to the gang bangers. You go, hey, guys, stop. Stop what you're doing. What's the twist?

Boom. Yeah. All of a sudden, when we did this on a virtual training earlier, somebody said the guy's Bruce Lee and he ends up kicking their butts. Doesn't need your help. In fact, he could probably help you. There's one of the twists I love. Somebody suggested that the gang banger, he had just robbed the gang bangers earlier.

That's hilarious. Yeah, it could be any one of those things. Like, for me, the real simple one is the old man says, I got this. And then he's. He's Bruce Lee. He's somebody like that. He's got that. Those kind of. You see a frail person, but in reality, he's super strong and super accomplished. Sweet.

So I want to.

That is it. That is that. Those are the two lessons. You create quirks by talking about qualities, and then you subvert, subvert the quality. You. You sell something else. About that person and then reveal the twist which is their true self.

Yeah. There's so much you can do with this. And by the way, the quirks are already there. We're just so close to our own stories. We're so close to ourselves. We don't see them. We're encouraging you to step back from your own stories to maybe bring a character to life by just giving them a quirk. We're exaggerating the true life situation, but the heart of the story is the truth. We don't want to have you making up stories, but we do want to have you making the story engaging and maybe even given a visual that gets the audience to picture the scene, they're more likely to go with you. I hope this has been. Chris, thanks for being here.

Oh, no problem.

Stepping in for Mark like, you're so freaking brilliant. If this has been helpful to you, we're doing a workshop next week called Find the Funny. Findthe Funny workshop dot com. Love to have you join Chris and me where we're gonna literally hold your hand as we walk you through these processes. So even if you're a seasoned pro, you're going to walk away with enhanced stories, maybe new stories. But it's called Find the funny. Create the stories that stick. So this is just a little. A teaser, but real life good content teaser to help you create a little checklist and step back, look at your stories. Chris, final thoughts about quirky characters or the workshop?

No, the workshop. I mean, Darren, I say this all the time and I'm not kidding. I love this workshop. I love teaching this class. It's unique because I'm bringing my perspective of working with television presenters. Darren has his perspective of working with public speaking, business presenters. And between the two of us, it's a really, really, you know, we try to make it super accessible, super usable so that when you walk out, your stories are stronger and they're funnier.

Yeah. And you'll be more engaging, which is part of being unforgettable. So again, go to findthefunnyworkshop.com, use the code POD25Podcast. 25. So you heard it here. That'll give you 25% off. We love teaching this. Now, this is like our third class. If you go to the webpage, just go to the webpage, findthefunnyworkshop.com, scroll down, and you'll see some people that are seasoned pros, some emerging presenters, and you'll hear what they thought of it and how they were blown away. Even though like Linda Marie Miller has been a speaker and been to many of our workshops, it changed the model for storytelling for her. And she's a pro. She's a pro.

Absolutely. No, there's a lot of it's been transformative for a lot of people. And again, we start with the essentials of storytelling. So the first day you learn how to make your story stronger. And then the second and third day we do humor. We do 10 different things like what you just saw or heard, we do 10 different humor tips and the outcome is you walk out and you've got a strat, you've got a strategy for your story, or if you've actually been working on it as you go on, you do the work, you're walking out with a better story, you're walking out multiple better stories.

Amen. And new process to go through. So quirky characters, one way to be unforgettable. I hope you join us at the work workshop. Even if you're a seasoned pro, you're going to get a new insight from Chris's decades in the late night comedy. Writing characters, making your stories funnier, more engaging, more compelling to help sell your point, make you uniquely you. And you'll tell these stories in a different way for the rest of your career. So join us. Thanks for listening to podcast. Thanks for joining me, Chris. Always fun to work with you.

A lot of fun. I hope I could fill Mark Brown's very handsome shoes.

All right.

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