Writing.Com General Discussion

Hello,
I'm new on Writing.com and I never tried to write a longer story or novel before. A week ago I started searching for some ideas for a story, a story I would love to read myself and I had real struggles at first because I hate these mainstream fantasy stories you find everywhere without a plot except the love life of a teenage girl...and I'm a teenage girl myself! I really wanted to write something new that no one has written before just because I didn't want to sound "mainstream" and boring, but after a while I realized that (in my opinion) a story don't has to be a innovation or something completely new. You just have to create your characters and your world with love and make the story interesting by looking at new aspects or by writing good social interaction. What I mean is there is no way of writing something that has never been there: your story just has to be nice to read and somehow the readers don't complain about everything being the same in every book. I don't judge a book by the "basic storyline" but the way it's able to catch me and make me love the characters though the story has already been used more than one time^^ Go ahead and write the story you want^^

What do you think? Does a story has to be new?

Best wishes
Alex