Do you think a story with two different POVs is bad?

[SeriousBrainDamage]

Using 1st person doesn't necessarily mean you have to use past tense.
You could very well combine 1st person with present tense.
(Though even with past tense, the storyteller doesn't have to know the course of the yet and if they do, they don't have to reveal it to the reader or could hold back parts of it.)

I wrote could.

I just offered a possible solution to this:

My problem is this. I want to write in the first person for the protagonist, but I'd also like to have some scenes where readers discover information that the protagonist isn't aware of yet, via third person scenes. I don't want to achieve this by having different viewpoint characters all using 1st person, because in first person there would be no way to generate mystery by hiding character's motives.

 

[Jaegarblk]

Perhaps helpful to note that the novel No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy switches point of view between third person and first person.

So it is a bit jarring but you'd be in good company.

 

[RejectTed]

Perhaps helpful to note that the novel No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy switches point of view between third person and first person.

So it is a bit jarring but you'd be in good company.

Moby Dick does it too, but it's very sneakily done.

 

[Dansak]

There are some books that switch from 1st POV to 3rd, the main one I can think of is 'As the Crow Flies' by Jeffery Archer. He uses a set rhythm though, so the first half of each chapter is 1st POV and the second half is 3rd, and crucially, there is a change in type face that helps the reader to switch POVs without it being too jarring.

It can be done, but I'd guess that it's very challenging, especially to keep it flowing naturally and not make the reader keep having to double-check why there has been a change in POV.

 

[Cuchuilain]

I dont know - I kind of like it froma readers perspective. when you try to adjust your mindset to that of each different narrator. Beryl Bainbridge does it well. Ira Levin does something like this too (in A kiss before Dying). Starts off with first person POV from the psycho-killers perspective, then later chapters are 3rd person from others view-points as they (and we) try to work out who the psycho-killer was, particularly since we were in his mind for the first few chapters.
It engages the reader if its done right.