Building Fiction probably doesn't offer much by way of new advice for anyone beyond the rank of beginner, but if you're ready to explore writing and publication, it offers an excellent starting point. I'll be using it as a text for beginning writing classes in the future.
I particularly liked what Kercheval has to say about "interior dialogue," aka "introspection," or what I often banefully call "musing." She talks about it as the strongest source of revealing internal conflict ("man against himself"), while action is the area in which external conflict ("man against man," "man against nature") is displayed. Of course many people have written about conflict before, but I think Kercheval's unique contribution is the very clear way she explains how one can visualize the resolution of the internal and external conflict. To wit: that the external crisis in a novel cannot be resolved until after the internal crisis is resolved.
I liked her statement in this regard that the internal crisis is the moment the protagonist decides to take the action which can potentially resolve the external conflict. This was, to me, a very thought-provoking way of describing what is traditionally known as the "come to realize" moment which follows the "black moment" of a novel. She suggests that often this moment of internal insight involves the protagonist ceasing to be stuck in the belief that people (including him/herself) can't change. Once the protagonist realizes that he/she *can* change, this permits the growth that allows the character to reframe his/her thinking so as to allow new possibilities for action to occur. The action, as mentioned above, which leads to the resolution of the external conflict.
Finally, I found Kercheval's explanation of the internal conflict techniques of flashbacks, dreams and visions quite useful. In particular, I hadn't thought of the use of visions as a useful technique in popular fiction before, and her analysis of it gave me new food for thought.