Why write a novella?

Usually, I write full-length novels, around 100,000 words, and I’ve published six of these in the form of two trilogies (INCEPTIO/PERFIDITAS/SUCCESSIO and AURELIA/INSURRECTIO/RETALIO). Each of my characters goes on a journey and I track in detail their development into their final tempered form as they thrust their way through to the climax of the story. Not only that, I can weave plots with as many twists and turns that my strange mind can concoct; some will have clues dropped in here and there, some will be reasonably evident, and some will tease.

But over the summer, I’ve written a novella of 35,000 words. Why? It came out of a conversation with a writing colleague. Quite a few friends were publishing novellas and I wondered at their ability to write so ‘short’. My colleague announced she was doing one, too. Why didn’t I have a go? I’d finished the last book in the second trilogy and was thinking about new projects. But could I do such a short piece of work and still produce a worthwhile book?

A little background…
My books are set in an imaginary country called Roma Nova, the last remnant of the Roman Empire that has toughed it out into the modern age, but with a twist – it’s ruled by women. Many aspects of life in this alternative timeline are exactly the same as in our own, but some are very different.

The first three books, INCEPTIO, PERFIDITAS and SUCCESSIO, are episodes in Roma Novan Carina Mitela’s life at ages 24, 32 and 39. I chose to skip other years as her life wasn’t at a special crisis point until the time of each of the stories in those three books. This reflects our own lives with brief highs in a continuous flow. I would think, though, that even in the quieter periods. Carina’s life is generally more exciting than our own!

At the end of INCEPTIO, the first book, we leave Carina as a newly minted Praetorian officer setting off on a mission in the borderlands of Roma Nova. When we meet her at the beginning of PERFIDITAS, the second, she’s a captain, heading her own branch and part of the command group, albeit as a junior member. She’s confident and competent with a record of success. So a bridging point between those six years seems a good idea....

I wanted to write a standalone adventure for Carina – she deserved it – but not one with the same complexity and depth of disaster for Roma Nova as the full-length books.