Mick,
There is no such thing as a “typical Nova”. As an example – two Novae V2467 Cyg & V2468 Cyg, both discovered by Japanese observers Tago & Kaneda. Both have a similar absolute magnitudes Mv -8.7, similar apparent magnitudes at maximum ~7.5V and similar t2 values (the time to lose two magnitudes) of 9 days, yet the former has a distance of 2.5kpc and the latter 6.5 kpc.
Gary