Voice: Questions in the narrative

Sure. I put questions in the narrative from time to time, and my POV isn't even close third (it's more distant third, which is pretty normal for my genre). Lots of published novels do it too.

I do it all the time. I don't see a problem with it, personally.

Nothing wrong with the questions as you have them, but, for what it's worth...

Michelle scanned the crowd as her puppy Bubbles purred against her chest. [Nothing wrong with the question but a new paragraph with an opening link to Sally would improve clarity. Also, I know you made it up but Sally wouldn't know the dog was 'purring?'] Really, did the school's animal code mean nothing to her? Where was she even going to put that thing? Sally really had no clue, but her musings came to an end after Michelle caught her staring. And that last sentence is not from Sally's POV - it's narrator intrusion.

Click to expand...

Changing it according to the above comments leaves us, just for example, with -

Michelle scanned the crowd, with Bubbles hugged against her chest.

Sally shook her head. Really, did the school's animal code mean nothing to Michelle? Where was she even going to put that thing?

In that particular instance I think it's clear enough and italics aren't needed. You might italicise the following -

Sally stared at Michelle, dumbfounded. Stupid bitch - you think you're exempt from school no animal rules? Put that dumb thing anywhere near me and I'll report you.

I use questions a lot

What's your doing is omniscient third. As long as it's clear, you can ask questions like that, but in your example, the POV isn't clear. Since you mention Michelle first in the same line, the questions are attributed to her. But you're saying the questions belong to Sally. Bufty's example clears that right up. Or if you had something before this example that established you were in Sally's head as she watched Michelle scan the crowd.

Even in omni, it has to be clear whose head you're in, and you want to keep them in their own paragraphs.

For what it's worth, third omni is incredibly difficult to do well. Third limited is a much easier POV to handle and can save you a lot of hassles.

If you are in Third Person POV, present tense, then you are writing along like this:

Sally takes up her schoolbag and walks down the dingy school corridor. She is feeling somewhat lost, but she has no leisure to worry. The invasion of Giant Frogs is planned for five o'clock and she is . . .

which is possible, but it is much more likely you are writing in Third Person, past tense, which would go something like this:

Sally took up her schoolbag and walked down the dingy school corridor. She felt somewhat lost, but she had no leisure to worry. The invasion of Giant Frogs was planned for five o'clock and she was . . .

What about questions inside the POV character's head?

We can do all kinds of fun stuff in POV. Inside the character's head she can observe, act, describe, hold opinions . . . We can put questions there.
We have a choice of making the questions simple thoughts or making them Interior Monologue.

When we have the character think actual words to herself, this is called Interior Monlogue. It is a sort of 'interior talking' that sounds like dialog. IM is expressed as if the character were speaking aloud.

Interior Monolgoue is generally in First Person (I, me) and Present Tense because this is what people use when they talk out loud.

IM is written in the manuscript as Italics of Underlines.

***
Sally held her breath. If I don't make any noise, they won't see me. Her legs trembled. Her hands shook.
(Interior Monologue.)

Sally held her breath. If she didn't make any noise, they wouldn't see her. Her legs trembled. Her hands shook.
(Not Interior Monologue.)
***

***
Sally picked herself up off the ground, wiping frog slime from her clothes. Why did life just utterly suck from every orifice?
(her thought, but not IM)

Sally picked herself up off the ground, wiping frog slime from her clothes. She wondered why life just utterly sucked from every orifice.
(Her thought, not IM)

Sally picked herself up off the ground, wiping frog slime from her clothes. Why does life just utterly suck from every orifice?
(her thought, expressed in IM)
***


In your example:

Michelle scanned the crowd as her puppy Bubbles purred against her chest. Really, did the school's animal code mean nothing to her? Where was she even going to put that thing? Sally really had no clue, but her musings came to an end after Michelle caught her staring.

These are Sally's thoughts -- you get to express the thoughts as questions -- and they are in her POV, but they are not IM and do not need to be Italics. (You do need a paragraphy break, at minimum, for clarity.)


If you wanted to put the thoughts in IM, it would go --

Michelle scanned the crowd as her puppy Bubbles purred against her chest.

Does the school's animal code mean nothing to her? Where is she even going to put that thing? Sally really had no clue, but her musings came to an end after Michelle caught her staring.

The question doesn't bother me at all. What's confusing to me about the paragraph is that is starts with Michelle, so the reader just assumes it's from her POV, then in the third sentence it shifts to Sally. The writer can fix this by saying, Sally watched Michelle as she scanned the crowd. Her puppy, Bubbles, purred against her chest. Sarah Blake does this in her book, The Postmistress, which I'm reading now. She shifts POV right in the middle of a scene. It's an otherwise well-crafted and interesting story, but that drives me nuts.