Ah, but DEM is often thought of as unsatisfying.
Tension in narrative is derived from connecting with a character, then applying stress to that character. It can be sweeping and grand, like taking a ring from the Shire to Mount Doom, or it can be simple and unrelated to anyone else, like a Nihonjin girl sitting in her Middle School class and wondering if she should confess her love to the Class Rep that is so popular and she is not. So step one is making a character that connects with readers in some fashion. This doesn't have to be a long experience, one of the most famous lines in literature did this in three words:
"Call me Ishmael."
Now you have a character, establish environment that is considered normal. Essentially, you are explaining to the reader that, first, this is the character, then you paint a picture of this is what the character considers normal. Most fantasy novels take their time doing this, because normal is often different than most reader's experiences, such as those chapters spent describing life in the Shire. If there is less new things to tell, this can happen very quickly, such as a girl sitting down in class at her Middle School.
The next step is to introduce tension. What is disrupting that normal life? What is stopping the character from fixing the problem immediately? How does having an unresolved problem affect the character? And how does the problem grow? Frodo is introduced to the Ring, and it must be destroyed. A journey is started, but the issues of outside influence grows more and more desperate the closer the Ring is to Mount Doom, while internally the influence of the Ring itself wears away the strength of Frodo until it is too much to bear. Or the girl in Middle School wants to confess her love to the Class Rep, but then she finds out he has a girl friend. Outwardly, she must defeat this girl friend, but inwardly she is conflicted that she is not worthy of Class Rep.
Then resolve it. The unexpected part doesn't have to be Deus Ex, only find a way that resolves it that is different than expectations. Tolkien actually did this, because in the end, it was not Frodo that cast the ring into the fire, but Gollum. Our girl in Middle School might find that the female friend she has been confessing her worries to all along was the one she loves, and she confesses to her instead of the Class Rep.
