...I don't know where mine has gone.

I've been working on this story off and on for...I don't even know. Probably six or seven years. That sounds like a long time but it's been more off than on, with a lot of huge gaps of not looking at it at all. As far as actual story text there's not a lot there, just a lot of summaries and character building and the like. I want to jump back into it with some world building, but lately it just feels so draining to do anything creative at all.

So my question is: How do you get out of a total creativity-void funk?

This might not work for everyone, but when this happens to me I start something completely fresh and new. Then when I'm done with that I feel less burnt-out about the first project and ready to tackle it again. Feel free to ponder changing it into a different form, too. I've had characters and settings morph over the years into something quite different from what I started with.

It...depends. But if you've been working on a story for several years but just can't find the "motivation" for it, I would agree with the suggestion to "scrap" the story, then restart with a blank slate.

It does sound hard, and it is, but there are some pros as well. For starters, if you like varying elements (such as characters, plot points, etc), you could use them for either other stories or a new story. That way, it will feel fresh, and your mind will not be strained with your "past self's" thoughts, because a person's mind does change over time, and with that, their writing.

But if you still like this story and don't want to "count it out" yet, then perhaps you should look it over with a neutral mind, and ask questions like "is this ____ really necessary?" or "could this be given more depth?" and just keep tweaking and improvising and the next thing you know, you might just find yourself inspired.

I hope that this was helpful.

Something that has helped me immensely with the actual writing process is "beat sheets"... I ran across them back in October of 2013 and my "why can't I make it this awesome concept work after all these years" worked itself out scary fast. Beat sheets function as a plot template and can help when figuring out what is necessary to the story and what isn't. Another thing that has helped me is collecting "how to write" books. (My Kindle is basically a tiny reference library. LOL) Some of my favorites are: Outlining Your Novel (and its workbook) by K.M. Weiland Structuring Your Novel (and its workbook) also by K.M. Weiland The Fiction Writer's Book of Checklists by Angela Hunt Of course, there are a lot of *free resources on the internet but I find the structure of a book helps me, because I'm a "list maker" and "researcher" at heart. (This is also why I enjoy the writing software Scrivener. It helps me to arrange my thoughts. It's not for everybody because it can be tricky to figure out all the features. I've been using it for a while and I've mostly just been sticking to the basics.)

*For those free resources... I would recommend: Writer's Cheat Sheets (also available in a pdf form here) How to Plot A Complex Novel in One Day blog post (kind of a "where should I focus first" type thing) and, you know, also anything you might find applicable in the Helpful Links for Writers and Poets thread on here

Any time you figure out another aspect of your story, be it the dramatic situation(s) or the type of villain, you are getting one step closer to completing your story.

Also, I always have multiple projects going so if I get burnt out on one I move on to another. Sometimes as I am working on other projects I'll figure out an aspect for the one I was having difficulty with. So, yeah, don't worry about moving on to other projects if you are stalled out because frustration is the killer of creativity.

First of all thank you everyone!

I've definitely been wondering if I need to just move along but I don't really know where to move on to. It's not even that this story has burned out, more like I can't seem to make anything creative at all come out of my brain.

These tools are absolutely fantastic! I'm a book person myself so I appreciate the structured assistance. I'm going to take a look through all of this and see if I can get something worked up even if it isn't the same story, maybe I need a little kick to get back into it.