How long should it be?

Whether it be suspense fiction or an autobiography - the length of a piece of writing is something that writers frequently struggle with. Is my novel too short or too long? What do publishers look for? How long is a novella? If I make it shorter or longer will this change what I'm trying to tell my reader?

Firstly, yes, there are general accepted lengths. So if you're an author and you've just written your first book and want to send it off into the abyss that is the market, if it's 200,000 words it is unlikely to hit the stores anytime soon - not impossible - but unlikely. On the other hand, if you're already a successful author (you wouldn't be here reading this!!) you can pretty much write anything and someone will pick it up and run with it!

Below is a suggested word length guide:

Novel - 60,000 to 100.000 words

Novella - 20,000 to 50,000 words

Novelette - 7,000 to 20,000 words

Short Story - up to 7,000 words

College Essay - variable but usually up to 1,000 words (some have set limits)

Blog post - variable but acceptable is around 1,500 words (mine are often shorter!) 

Facebook post - 80 characters or less! Yes, this doesn't seem much, but research says this is optimal to engage others.

Tweet - 280 characters

Text SMS - more of an etiquette matter really. The shorter the better. 

Tome - lets not go here. I will never write one!!