[thenerdhead]

I think all technical writing books are dry and boring.

The best books I've read that helped me with technical writing have been classic writing ones such as Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, Steven Pressfield, William Zinsser, and more.

Also following this general guideline from Orwell may help:

i. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

ii. Never use a long word where a short one will do.

iii. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

iv. Never use the passive where you can use the active.

v. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

vi. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...

You may also find some gems here and there with big tech companies developer documentation contribution style guides i.e.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/style-guide/welcome/ https://developers.google.com/style

[stinkytaco]

Somewhat interestingly, Ted Chiang, in my opinion one of the best writers working in science fiction today, worked as a technical writer for Microsoft. However, he has said that they are very different and he doesn't feel one really impacts the other [1]. I'm not entirely sure I buy that, but it is interesting to see someone who's worked in both mediums talk about the connection.

[0]:https://electricliterature.com/the-legendary-ted-chiang-on-s...

[halitherses]

You may also enjoy hearing that Thomas Pynchon spent a spell as a technical writer at Boeing. I've only been able to dig up one of his articles [1]. I assure you that it's worth the read.

[1] http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/uncollected/together.html

[kqr]

I agree. Taking advice from fiction writers I love has improved my technical writing more than anything else.