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All the best writers that I know in the sense that you mean (communicating information precisely), including non-native speakers, are also avid fiction readers. Many also write fiction or prose for fun. Familiarity and fluency with the details of usage and vocabulary are what let one employ these things precisely for whatever purpose, fictional or not.

That is not my experience at all. To the contrary, those who write fiction read mostly fiction, and those who write non-fiction read mostly non-fiction.

They're incredibly different skill sets. One is all about argumentation, convincing, facts, and citations. The other is all about imagination, beauty, evocation, flavor.

Obviously they both require assembling nouns and verbs and other parts of speech in sentences, but they seem to be virtually entirely different capabilities at the end of the day.

Writing excellent short stories doesn't really help with crafting effective business communications, design documents, etc. And vice-versa. In fact, I think they can sometimes even be harmful -- the kind of clarity required for non-fiction can constrain imagination in fiction, while the creativity celebrated in fiction can be quite counterproductive when it comes to functional communication -- what is intended to be clever or unique often gets misunderstood.

To back up your point, I kind of hated English class until my senior year of high school when I took AP English Language (nonfiction), after which I started drinking books from a firehose.

> I had to become a middle aged adult and learn this for myself.

This is a cliche.

You can’t write precisely without an understanding of how language becomes imprecise, of its fundamental instability. Precision and delicate use is an accident when it does happen, and its happening can never be proven. We must have faith in the accident.

I disagree strongly with this, it's like saying you must understand the subtleties of calligraphy or typography in order to be proficient at writing in your notebook with a pencil. I have no doubt you will be more purposeful and deft with your handwriting having this knowledge but they're two completely different skills.

You can be taught to and be proficient in "writing with your pencil" by learning the rules [1]. Efficient, practical, immediately useful and applicable. No subtlety required nor desired. It's the same as all practical skills or trades.

[1] https://stylepedia.net/style/

Style guides can’t teach you what not to write. If you can’t see what could be missing, how do you know you’re making any sense?

Holding yourself to a standard doesn’t mean it’s a meaningful one.

I just used that as an example because it's free, high quality, a good reference, and goes beyond what you would expect out of a style guide and is closer to a textbook on technical writing. So just replace it with your preferred technical writing manual—although a lot of them tend to call themselves style guides or manuals of style.

Either way, it's an avenue of learning to write that ignores, I would say, all the artistic aspects of writing. Inasmuch as you can say anything "isn't an art."

I believe you are confusing verbosity with artistry, and ability with precision. A good writer knows when to smother their creation.

I agree that it's a good distinction to make. Personally I haven't thought about it till I read On Writing Well by William Zinsser. In the book he specifically teaches writing nonfiction and even shares an anecdote where he was a guest on a radio show promoting a writing conference and was annoyed with the host because he conflated writing with literary works.

So yeah, I recommend the book to people interested in writing.

More traditionally you'd study "rhetoric", the art of making your arguments appealing. It doesn't really matter whether the things you say are true or false.

Rhetoric is valuable in any writing endeavor; clarity is only valuable sometimes.

For a funny take on the whole "rhetoric" is the use and abuse of logic some people might enjoy How to Win Every Argument by Madsen Pirie which also happens to be where I plucked the tagline regarding rhetoric from. It's a pretty easy book to go through in toilet break sized increments, the author goes through different fallacies and how they're employed one by one along with various rhetorical devices.

Though a few years ago when I searched for a book on rhetoric and making convincing arguments Office Of Assertion by Scott Crider also popped up, but it's aimed more at written rhetoric instead of what most people have in mind.

> For a funny take on the whole "rhetoric" is the use and abuse of logic

But it's much broader than that. You can make true arguments. You can make confusing arguments. And you can use tools that have nothing to do with logic at all. Rhetoric has a lot to say about rhythm, alliteration, and linguistic structure. And a lot more to say about your personal bearing and your tone of voice.

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