Meet Elaine Gao: a Self-Published 16 Year Old

By: Jes Cates

Elaine Gao, a junior at Jenks high school published her first novel, “The Oracle,” on September 26, 2022. She spent eight months writing it and over a year getting it published, but at last her work has come to fruition.

Gao first discovered her love of writing in middle school in Mr. Olsen’s English class. When given a 3,000-word assignment she turned in a story 10,000 words long. Still, this love of writing didn’t turn into a novel until she watched the movie “300” by Zack Synder. Although she hated the battle scenes, the scenes with the King’s oracle caught her attention; it was then that she began writing. She wanted a story with characters that fully captured her audience, this was when she created her main character, the oracle Lyra.

“She can see this person's future, but can she change it,” explains Gao, talking about her character. “She must consider if she changes this person's future, how will she change other people’s future? Does she have the right or ability to do so?”

Elaine Gao giving a customer a signed book during her novel's debut on November 3 2022

At first, as she started writing, Elaine struggled to make her characters feel realistic, and she found that her writing was more about the research she had done than the characters themselves. Inspiration, however, came from a biblical source.

“The story seemed way too dry, too factual, like nonfiction,” said Gao. “The biblical story of Saul and David always spoke to me, how Saul wanted to kill David and there was a moment where David had the opportunity to kill someone who wanted to kill him, that story has stayed in my mind for a long time.”

While Gao had ideas for the plot, the novel itself still took a while to come together.

“At first I wasn't that serious about it, I didn't know I wanted to make it into a novel,” said Gao. “But I had virtual classes so I just wrote, and stopped writing, it was very intermittent.”

In the beginning, she mostly wrote her novel for fun, but she began to take writing more seriously a couple of months into it. Gao decided to give herself a time and a word count goal, one hour every day and 500 words a day, with weekends off. However, she would always go over this goal, spending several hours on her book a day and writing well over her minimum.

Emily Stewart, an English teacher at the freshman academy was Gao’s creative writing teacher during her freshman year when Gao wrote most of her book. Stewart often acted as a mentor for Gao, helping her with minor details of her story.

“She is so impressive,” said Stewart of Gao. “She had not only the desire but she knew she was going to do it and she knew she was going to finish the book”

As Gao would often pick Stewart’s brain, they got closer together and eventually they would eat lunch together almost every month. These lunches were a good time where Gao and Stewart could fully focus on the book and task at hand, without the distractions of other students. During these long discussions, Stewart got insights into what makes Gao’s writing style unique.

“So often we get bored in historical fiction because it's all about the research, not the characters,” said Stewart, “but [Gao] builds characters that immediately grab you, and she always has. That's not an easy thing to do, to make your audience care for these individuals that they will never know personally. That’s when you never want to put the book down.”

Even though Gao went to her English teachers for help, guidance, and small edits, her work was all hers. The plot came entirely from her along with the characters and she was the one to put all the effort and the research into making this book.

“She was always so intentional with what she needed help on,” said Stewart, “She’s always had that writer's eye, she knew what she wanted to do. We would go over chapter one together and dialogue and characterization and all kinds of intentional choices. I was her cheerleader, she did all the work.” 

Stewart has talked with several students about their projects, screenplays, short stories, and of course novels. However, Gao is her first student to be able to publish a novel in high school.

For students who are interested in writing and publishing their own novels, Gao gave some insights into the process.

There are three kinds of publishing, traditional publishing, self-publishing, and vanity publishing. Gao attempted first to publish traditionally but ended up having to publish somewhere in between vanity and self-publishing.

Self-publishing is when an author publishes a book without a traditional publisher, they have creative liberty and are in control of the publishing costs and profits. Vanity publishing is essentially self-publishing with the help of a printing press. 

Traditional publishing is when a publisher buys the rights to an author’s book, and they then print and sell the book to their retailers and book stores. Gao originally went this route, she reached out to several publishers, introducing herself and attaching a preview of her book. Everyone said they wouldn't do it since she didn't have any previous experience being a writer.

She then decided to self-publish, and she researched publishers. Independent publishers accept books from less experienced authors, so she chose an independent publisher called iUniverse, using their contact information on google she emailed them introducing herself and her book.

They got Gao in touch with editors who looked over and edited her book; she had the power to accept or reject their suggestions. Gao pointed out that the editing process took longer than writing the book itself.

Elaine Gao signing a copy of her books at her novel's debut.

Now that it's officially published, Gao has been around Jenks and her church hosting book signings. She’s also spoken to Sewart’s creative writing classes, sharing her publishing process. She is also writing a new book, titled “Enigma,” she hopes to publish it traditionally now that she has her experience of writing and publishing “The Oracle.”

Be on the lookout for her upcoming titles and find “The Oracle” from Amazon here or Barnes and Noble here. It is available as an eBook for $1.99 or as a paperback for $20.99.