I'm curretly reading a novel where the following POV switching occurs. The main Protag' tells his story in First Person. Indespersed are chapters where the Pntag's story is being told in Third person.

Whilst I have no trouble reading this and enjoying the story, it doesn't seem quite right. If I were writing the story, I worry because how does the narrator, who is mainly the Protag' know what the Antag' is up to. And with it being a detective story, he plainly can't, unless the fact that it's all told in past tense is a get out. As it could be being told in retrospect.

Excuse the pedantic part of my DNA

Others feeling on this?

Darryl

Darryl, can you tell us which book it is?

I ask because - spookily – I woke up this morning with an idea for a new novel in which the main character’s story is told from two POVs and two tenses.

The story opens - in POV1/present tense - with him trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building: [If I’d stuck to the original plan I’d be eating lunch with my wife now instead of lying here… blah blah]

Then, as he’s slipping in and out of consciousness, his mind drifts back to earlier times and the narrative switches to POV3 and the past tense. The other characters; his family, the emergency services and so on, would be in POV3.

So I’m particularly interested in who else has used this method – and how well it works. The only time I’ve come across it myself was in ‘After You’d Gone’ by Maggie O’Farrell. To my mind, she handled it brilliantly but it's probably a different genre to the one you're describing. It’s in the Review section if you're interested.

Cheers
Dee.

No Problem,

It's a Crime genre book written by Micheal Connelly. It's Called 'The Poet'.

The Protag' a reporter tells his story in first person POV Past.

Whilst this is happening, indispersed chapters tell the murderer's story via third person POV Past.

There doesn't seem to be anything that defines why the story must be structured like this, unless a big ending to the story proves me wrong.

It's a much less complex methodology than the one you mention as the tense doesn't change.

Best

Darryl

Thanks Darryl, I'll keep an eye out for it.

Dee

I wonder if the author has done it this way so that you can have the limited view of the protagonist while enjoying fuller knowledge from the 3rd person POV of the various other characters. While their POV would be limited, because there are any nymber of them, it is closer to omniscient, although still limited. That way you would know more than the protagonist, but I am going to guess that the author is still not gong to give it all to you. This is my guess not knowing anything other than what I have read here! But sounds like an intricate handling of POV.

Ani