Dorseyville Middle School student author embraces fantasy fiction
A pint-sized student author continues to develop her creative writing skills as she transitions from Kerr Elementary School to Dorseyville Middle School in the Fox Chapel Area School District.
Bella Gao, 11, lives in O’Hara and is a sixth-grader with a zest for writing fantasy fiction.
While enrolled for four years in the gifted Quest program at Kerr Elementary, Gao wrote and published two different fiction mini-books, the first (“The Dragon Keeper”) in third grade and last year, “The Crystal Trials.”
“The Crystal Trials” is available at the Cooper-Siegel Community in Fox Chapel and the Sharpsburg Community Library.
Gao is an avid reader of fantasy fiction and has read “The Hobbit,” “Wings of Fire” and “Warriors.”
Inventing characters for her books comes easily.
“I’ve always really liked fantasy fictio,n so I made them all up,” Gao said. “I would write at school and at home. It took about 10 weeks.”
“The Crystal Trials” 11 chapters combine fantasy with action as 16-year-old Princess Mina Crystia strives to take back her throne, find and help save her adoptive father, compete in the Crystal Trials and thwart a fake prince out to sabotage the kingdom.
Supporting characters in the book include the handsome Prince Ashter, Jacob Marvin, the palace baker and Mina’s best friend and waitress, Rhianna Floris.
“I don’t like writing with a time limit. This book has a lot of action and I had to cut out a lot of action. In the original draft, Mina goes through the entire Crystal Trials. A character I like is Rhianna. I feel she’s more like me,” Gao said.
Writing comes naturally to Gao and she takes a relaxed approach to penning her stories.
“I don’t plan too much,” said Gao, who frequents the Cooper-Siegel library, adding that she has read just about all the fantasy books in there.
Kerr Elementary gifted support teacher Carli Hackett taught Gao for four years in Quest (Quality Enrichment Studies) and Gao’s book project was part of the English Language Arts Creative Connection Capstone.
“Bella is an extraordinary student with astonishing academic, musical, athletic and artistic talents,” Hackett said. “Bella was an independent learner with a remarkable drive to excel.”
Hackett said editing Gao’s writing was limited.
“She writes well-organized paragraphs and needs little help with revisions,” Hackett said. “Her stories are rich in dialogue and descriptive language.”
Gao is the only child of Xing-Gao and Qingyang-Yu of O’Hara. Also a part of the family is Sendo, the beloved family dog.
At Dorseyville, Gao is currently working on a creative writing project dubbed “A Chilling Tale,” a horror play.
So far, she’s loving middle school.
“I don’t have to work slowly in a single file anymore,” Gao said. “I would tell students at Kerr to not stress about writing. I get into my creative writing trance when random parts of my day, I think of more things than if I actively try.”
Gao hopes to one day be an attorney.
“They do a lot of yelling. I feel like a lawyer can just be like “Ha ha! I found a loop inside the system,” she said.
Joyce Hanz is a native of Charleston, S.C. and is a features reporter covering the Pittsburgh region. She majored in media arts and graduated from the University of South Carolina. She can be reached at jhanz@triblive.com
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