Words and a Newbie

MissMandee

MissMandee

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Hello everyone! :) I am currently upon final completion of an auto biography/memoir. I have no idea how many words it "should" be. Can anyone offer some insight to the new girl on this site? Thank you!

Mandee
 

yonasmichael

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I've tried to find out the same thing, and there really is no defined word count for a memoir, from what i can see anyway. I'm finishing a memoir myself and it's about 70,000, which I believe is about "medium"-sized for a memoir.
 

Nandi

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Welcome to AW, MissMandee!

The research I did for this suggested the length should be in the range of what it would be for a novel, somewhere between 80K and 100K.
 

caitlin_constantine

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jerrywaxler said:
"They say" that publishers like shorter books from new writers. I think that means 100,000 max.

Jerry
Click to expand...

I am very happy to hear that 100,000 words or less qualifies as "shorter." I was panicking when I realized my latest draft clocks in somewhere around 90K.
 
sommemi

sommemi

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So then 162,923 is too big? Honestly, I think it should be split into two, but... having a hard time figuring out HOW...

Welccome everyone else and thank you Jerry!
 
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