Is it possible to make an original story?

Plus you get people who TELL you it's unoriginal.

A friend of mine read the first chapter of my book and claimed that it was EXACTLY like LOTR.

Now, my book DOES have a powerful object, which might be connected to the One Ring or something like that, but that isn't even HINTED at in the first chapter. As of the first chapter, you don't even know it EXISTS. And the races, nations, and characters are NOTHING like LOTR.

So, yes. People will TELL you that your story is unoriginal, because they're stupid.

In my experience on the forums and outside of it, I've learned that while there's never an ORIGINAL story now, you can indeed take a idea used before and twist it around....

In fact, I'm pretty sure someone on this forum said that to me. I just can't remember who...