How long is a 1500 word speech?

A 1500 word speech takes exactly 10 minutes at an average speaking pace of 150 words per minute. At 130 it runs 11 minutes 32 seconds, and at 170 it finishes at 8 minutes 49 seconds. TED style talks get delivered nearer 130 than 150, because pauses are part of the form, so 1500 words often becomes an 11 minute talk on stage. Most curators want a script around 1,300 words for a 10 minute slot.

What fits in 1,500 words

This length is the ten minute TEDx talk.

Fifteen hundred words is one idea with a beginning, a reversal, and an ending. You get two stories and one piece of data, or one story told across the whole talk with the data inside it. Ten minutes is long enough that the audience will notice structure, so the shape has to be deliberate. Every TED style talk at this length answers a question the first ninety seconds raised.

A structure that fits

1. 1Question, 150 to 200 words. Open with the moment that made you ask it. 'I was 34, and that year I had not finished a single book I started.'
2. 2The obvious answer, 250 to 300 words. What everyone assumes, stated fairly. Give it its strongest form.
3. 3Why it fails, 350 to 400 words. Your evidence. One study or one dataset, described in numbers a listener can hold in their head.
4. 4The better answer, 400 to 450 words. The idea you came to give, with the story that earned it.
5. 5What changes, 150 to 200 words. Return to the opening moment and answer the question you asked.

Before you deliver it

Ten minutes needs a memorized spine and improvised joints. Learn the first and last sentence of each of the five sections word for word and let the middles vary. Rehearse standing, without notes, at least six times, because the sixth run is where the filler words drop out. Time three separate full runs and take the slowest one as your real number.