Steady Clip

My problem is usually that my writing moves too fast, because I always keep the three BIG HUGE LIFE QUESTIONS in mind:

What is it?
Why do I care?
What's in it for me?

The problem isn't so much that I get bogged down; it's that:

1. I hate to flesh out the "boring stuff" (ie, any part of the story where people aren't fighting). So, when I get lazy, I just tack on the necessary info in the midst of the a fight. NOT GOOD. Weeding out those bits and pieces can be tough.

2. I want to tell EVERYBODY'S story AT THE SAME TIME. So my timelines tend to get *very* messy. Everything's happening all at once, but you can only read one person's POV at a time. Sorting out where and when everybody is existing is pretty tough, esp. when I'm keeping everything as trim as possible.

3. I know what everyone's motives are, but the characters often don't, and sometimes the readers can't decifer them, either. In my stories, people are constantly lying, or dreaming, or in deniel, and there are always a lot of POVs in play. Sorting out what everyone wants when, and who knows what, is pretty tough.

And what with all that sorting out of POV and motive and timeline and plot, it's tough to decide how much the audience needs to know when. My betas so far haven't been a whole lot of help, because everyone who reads my stuff seems to have a different threshhold for narrative ignorance. AAACK.

I've read the first seventy pages or so of my novel SO many times, I'm having a hard time looking at them anymore, let alone figuring out the pace or how fast I can dispence knowledge.

Time for another beta? Time to put the manuscript away? Time to buckle down, mainline coffee, and do some more copy edits? A three hour read-through, with no editing allowed (only note-taking)?

I don't know.