I am giving serious consideration to just compiling it, maybe after doing a summary of the boring crud that would happen in that chapter, and seeing what my alpha readers think. The issue is, the characters think that they have to go to a particular place, but they happen to be wrong. I don’t mind wasting their time, but I do mind wasting the reader’s.
So I dunno.
Moe Lane
PS: The other problem is, somebody’s got to read the dang book before they can give me an opinion on how to fix this, methinks.
Maybe I’ve just been (re)reading Lee & Miller a bit much recently but … is the place significant to the sequel?
.
Mew
Perhaps, in the process of wasting their own time the miss out on something vitally important “back home, providing some lingering tension to maintain reader interest…
Are there any more alpha reader positions open? I would like to apply for the job.
For the situation in question, you might consider introducing conflict between the characters. Conflict can reveal a lot about a person, and having internal conflict could produce tension and lead to further complications later in the story.
Maybe the lead character believes that the group should go to one location, and one of his associates disagrees. How they resolve the conflict and decide on a place to go would reveal something about each character. It might lead to a greater confidence in the leader, or, if the leader is wrong, might set up a fun “I told you so” opportunity.
“the characters think that they have to go to a particular place, but they happen to be wrong”
If it worked for The Last Jedi, …