Character Empathy

What is the key to creating empathy with the audience and our characters?  How does success play into this?

    The key to creating empathy with the audience and our characters is desire, motive, and action. We are able to understand characters who want something and who acts on it as those are human characteristics that everyone can relate to. Having characters be relatable is the primary trait that makes the audience empathize with them. Additionally, people empathize with characters that have traits which they aspire to have. Success plays into creating empathy as people aspire to be successful and can relate when a character fails. By showing both failure and success, it meets both criteria, which greatly increase the empathy that the audience feels towards the character.