Gauging emotional impact.

Here are a few related questions for the writers in the crowd: How do you know if your story works at an emotional level? Rephrased: how do you know they'll laugh when you want 'em to laugh, cry when you want 'em to cry? And how do you know you're not traipsing off into the land of literary autism? Maybe you know that place: you look at what you've written; your inner voice says "YES!", but your readers all say, "Uhhhh . . . " I've been thinking about this for a while now -- ever since I got into the latter third of my novel, and more frequently as I close in on the ending. Thinking my way through the epilogue today, I made myself cry. Since this happened while driving, you might argue it wasn't a good thing. But I was tickled. It's not the first time I made myself cry. Trouble is, I get into moods where it doesn't take much to set me off. An old Barney Miller episode might do it for me. Since the stuff I write ultimately comes from my innards, it stands to reason it should have some emotional impact for me. I suppose that at a bare minimum, my writing should make me feel the 'correct' way. If it doesn't work for me, why should it work for anyone else? After that, I would hope it works for my handful of readers. The fact that my writing made a certain someone cry recently does, I admit, cheer my heart. It would be nice to have a few dozen readers vet the manuscript before farming it to the publishers, but I know that's not going to happen. So I guess I'll have to cross my fingers, knock on wood, and send it out, hoping that at least one publisher will see this book the same way I do. What else can I do? D.