Echoing Raymond Carver, Moran insists that writing respects the reader’s finite life. Books – like sentences – signal their ending early; good writers leave before the encore.     | A | Bloat & showiness: writers forget the reader’s finite life; killer sentences strung back‑to‑back exhaust. | | D | Gift‑ethic: treat the sentence as hospitality. Use white‑space, short paragraphs, early exits; let _voice_ supply coherence rather than over‑signposting. | | G | Examples: Carver’s cinnamon‑roll story; Macaulay’s anchovy‑sauce image; Clive James’s wet‑towel quip; Fay Weldon’s two‑sentence paragraphs; García Márquez novel that deprives beer‑drinking reader of gulp‑breaks. | | C | Contribution: crystallises **Maxim #9** (love the full stop) as moral stance – “leave before the encore.” Wraps the whole book as a love‑letter to the _finite_ sentence, reinforcing #13 via paragraph rhythm tutorials. |