The key ideas

Better Small Talk: Talk to Anyone, Avoid Awkwardness, Generate Deep Conversations, and Make Real Friends

Patrick King, 2020

Why does a conversation with someone new so often die on the second line? Patrick King shows that small talk is not empty chatter but a warm-up for a real conversation. You will learn how to start without a rehearsed witty line, what to say to a one-word reply, and how to move from the weather to what actually matters.

Who it is for

For anyone who gets stuck after “How are you?” “Fine.” and has no idea what to say next. And for anyone who wants to meet people more easily at work, at a party or in a new crowd.

Most people treat others like strangers, and that is why they never become friends.

“Where do you work?” “At a bank.” “Right.”

Picture a party at a friend's place. You are introduced to Tom, and the two of you trade the usual lines. Where do you work? At a bank. Do you like it? Yeah, it's fine. Then comes the pause. You both stare into your glasses, and one of you suddenly remembers an urgent need to visit the snack table. An hour later, neither of you will remember this conversation.

Patrick King, by his own account, spent many years as a shy introvert and knew those pauses well. Then he became a communication coach, and in 2020 he published a book about chatter about the weather and the weekend, the kind of talk we call small talk. His central idea sounds surprising. Small talk does not deserve contempt, and skipping it is a mistake: it is the warm-up, not the goal. And you can learn to do it, like any other skill.

King does not promise to make you the life of every party. He gives you working tools: how to prepare for a conversation before you leave the house, how to begin, what to say to a short reply so the talk does not die, and how to tell a story people want to hear to the end. Several of his techniques have short abbreviations, and we will unpack each one in plain words.

By the end of the book you will have a set of moves for the moment a conversation is about to fall flat. And the pause after “At a bank” will stop being a dead end.

You can't skip the steps to closeness

Plenty of people admit they can't stand talking about the weather and would rather get straight to what matters. King understands them: almost nobody likes small talk, he says. But it has a job to do, and there is no way around it.

In King's view, getting to know someone happens in steps. First comes small talk. Then people share facts about themselves: where they live, what they do. Then opinions. Only after that, feelings. You usually can't jump over the steps: few people are ready to tell a stranger what worries them.

Imagine a new colleague, Dennis, asking you at the coffee machine what you fear most in life. You would most likely feel awkward, not warm. The same question after a month of lunches together could land very differently.

King notes that the order is not rigid and you can play with it. But once you understand what small talk is for, it stops being annoying. You don't talk about traffic because traffic interests you. You give the other person time to get used to you, and you test where the conversation can go next.

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About the author

Patrick King is an American social skills coach and the author of many books on communication. By his own account, he spent years as a shy introvert.

All books by this author: Patrick King

Terms from the book

  • introvert
  • Small talk: Light conversation about everyday things: the weather, work, the weekend.
  • Inertia: Here: the habit of staying in the state you are already in. King uses it for how hard it is to switch from your own thoughts into conversation mode.
  • Ten-second relationships: A technique from the book, not a scientific term: a quick exchange of a few words with a stranger to warm up before an important conversation.
  • Conversation resume: A technique from the book: a mental list of topics you enjoy talking about. King's has four parts: your week, your life more broadly, your unusual experiences and your take on the news.
  • Script: Here: the familiar set of lines and moves people act out in familiar situations, almost without thinking.
  • Five Ws: The five questions who, what, where, when and why. People use them to build a full picture of an event.
  • HPM: King's shorthand for history, philosophy, metaphor: answering a remark with your own story, your own view, or what the topic reminds you of.
  • SBR: King's shorthand for specific, broad, related: asking a specific question, a broad question, or a question about a neighbouring topic.
  • Free association: Moving from one thought to the next by what it reminds you of. King suggests it as a way to find new topics when a conversation stalls.
  • EDR: King's shorthand for emotion, detail, restatement: guessing how the other person feels, asking for details, or putting their words in your own.
  • Elicitation: From the verb elicit, to draw out. For King, it means ways of raising a topic so the other person wants to respond without being asked directly.
  • 1:1:1 rule: A rule from the book: a story in conversation is built from one action, one emotion and a one-sentence ending.
  • Mini-stories: A technique from the book: short three-sentence stories on common topics, prepared in advance.

All terms

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