I'm either a sensitive guy or a wimp. I cry at weddings, funerals, movies, sometimes even birthday parties. The threshold for choking me up is quite low, compared to the national average. My "F" is off the scale (in Myers-Briggs speak).
This aspect of my psyche, coupled with the perennial close-to-the-writing issue all authors face, makes it very difficult for me to determine what's genuinely moving in my fiction.
A prime example (and one that's now close to hand) is
the excerpt from my current novel-in-progress that I posted recently. When I was writing this scene, it made me emotional. Not in a boo-hoo sort of way, but in a chokes-me-up sort. Back when I did music, I'd have a similar reaction when a public performance really came together, when, well, "everything had seemed to align in a perfect way, and [I'd] thought perhaps [I] could do anything." Evan's words. Read the excerpt, then come back.
Even on re-reads (assuming I haven't read it within the past day or two), this scene pulls emotion up from inside me. I want my novels to have a succession of such experiences, spaced out appropriately, with entertaining "down time" between them. Add an engaging plot and interesting characters, a set of questions to pull the reader along, and some fun, slanted takes on reality, and for my money, you have the winning bet for great speculative fiction. That's what I'm trying to write.
Can't tell whether I'm really succeeding. Again, I'm too close to it. But it "works for me." I wonder whether it will work for the reader-at-large?