Just finished reading Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, by Kate Wilhelm, half-writing-tips-book and half-autobiography-of-a-writing-workshop. A lot of the writing advice is familiar, the stuff that was drilled into us at Clarion (e.g., “No deus ex machina!”), which made for a nice refresher as well as a nice trip down nostalgia lane. Other parts were less familiar, which made for some thought-provoking reading.
One of the most interesting things that was new to me was the idea that there are two types of writers: visualizers and constructionists. Visualizers often start with a strong visual image, then work backward to figure out the world and characters where the image came from – sort of inductive writing. Constructionists are more deductive – they need to know where it’s taking place, what the historical background is, the characters’ birthdays and favorite colors, etc., and then all of that leads naturally to images , scenes, dialogue. Oddly enough, I lean slightly more toward the visualizer camp, even though my stories aren’t very cinematic. Though lately, I’ve been learning to do a bit more of the constructionist approach and have been enjoying it.
Definitely worth a read for any writer, especially Clarion grads or would-be Clarionites.
Bread & Magic 
I can remember reading that bit a couple of months after Clarion and spending a couple of hours trying to puzzle out which camp people might have fallen into based on their crits 🙂
That could be a fun guessing game, though in some cases it would be easier than others…