New NaNo, new genre

For this year's NaNoWriMo (national novel writing month), I'm venturing into the place where no one I know in real life would ever expect to find me (and that's just how I want it): Historical Fiction.  Usually, I'm a dystopian and sci-fi kind of person to the extreme point where my characters aren't always recognizable as human beings with relatable emotions and abilities anymore: you know what I'm talking about.  While Tris and Katniss may be awesome, and sure, there are some ways you can tell they're human, who is actually in a situation that would be familiar to either of them?  (And conversely, is their situation ever familiar to you?)  I'm not saying anything against stories like that -I enjoyed those trilogies as much as the next person- but I wanted something more realistic, closer to home.

I hated history in every form -subject, class, the grades I get in history class- until I decided to set my story in the Vietnam War era.  Then I found myself researching the Vietnam War... on my own time.  The history isn't my favorite part of it, but I do love being able to put myself in the shoes of the daughter of a man who was drafted for the war.  While I'm 15 years old and obviously have never experienced my father being drafted for war like my main character, Emma, has, I can still put her in a realistic world and have her live a realistic life that honestly, most people can relate to.  They know what she's talking about.  She's going to school, trying to make friends, trying to fit into a new place, and even if you've never been the new kid, she still goes home every day and to sleep every night and she's not on a train to a capitol where she's going to shoot bows and arrows, and she isn't climbing abandoned ferris wheels and taking aptitude tests.  She's doing what you do.  And to me, that makes it so much easier to get into a novel and connect with characters.

I've always loved reading sci-fi and dystopian for the fast pace and crazy suspense and adventure, but if I had to pick favorites every single one that comes to mind is realistic or historical fiction.  Summer Hawk by Deborah Savage and Waiting For Normal by Leslie Connor come to mind.

I've never written in this genre before and I'm not sure how it will go, but I'm actually doing preplanning for this year's Nano (!), and I can already see how much more I have than when I was writing sci-fi and had a tendency to jump from one plot point to the next without developing my characters as human beings.  Last year, I was focusing on having my characters running away from a sinister government that wanted to experiment on them and throwing in some awkward romance scenes without bothering to ask what they were running from.  Why was the government sinister?  What happened that changed our world into theirs?  Why did a genetic mutation come about allowing them to be struck by lightning?  It couldn't just be random, that goes against everything dictated by biology.  And I didn't want to focus on the running, hiding, motion.  I wanted to zoom in on the small moments that come in a world that, while it may change to make sci-fi reality someday, isn't so alien yet.  Or even a time, like the 1960's, where the modern world was evolving but yet still simpler than today.

A time I and the readers can understand.  And that's why writing in a different genre is so important to me.  Because it isn't new, and different, not really, and I'm starting to get older and see that it isn't about being the first, or furthest ahead- for me at least, it's about creating what I know and making it beautiful.

Are you planning to participate in NaNoWriMo?  If so, what are your plans?  Plot?  Characters?  Genre? 

How do you want to make your readers feel?