Why is so hard to be novel when writing a story?

Lolita is an older man with a thing for a young girl. Gone with the Wind is boy meets girl in the Civil War, Dr. Zhivago is boy meets girl in the time leading up to the Russian revolution. They aren't "novel" and they don't try to be. They are about story and character. Some writers - I see this especially in Indie movies - for some reason think that "strange" is good because it is "new" and novel. Very often - IMO most of the time - they just end up being contrived and not very good. If you set up a story between two bacteria in a petri dish it's still a love story. Understand these things. Great writing isn't that our characters live in a glass house on a cliff, it's what our characters do together that matters. If the glass house is a device then fine. If it's just a house made out of glass then it is contrived.

You should know the answer to your question, Andrew Crow. There is nothing new under the sun, what has been done will be done again.

Oh, I see Update, ha ha ha.