Columnist Susan Snyder: Writers are a bunch of cards

Friday, Oct. 15, 2004 | 3:54 a.m.

The last time you celebrated a birthday, chances are Bill Gray or Molly Wigand was there.

In spirit, anyway.

Gray and Wigand aren't party-crashers. They're writers for Hallmark Cards. And they visited Las Vegas with their co-worker and co-writer Barbara Loontz last week to talk about writing cards and to cull inspiration from those who buy them.

"We forget, sometimes, that real people send these cards to real people," Gray said to a small knot of Hallmark faithful who gathered at Jitters Cafe in Summerlin on Wednesday morning.

It was the second such session for the writers, who spoke at the Antique Cafe and Tea Room on Tuesday and at the AARP convention Thursday.

"The difference between greeting cards and other communications, like e-mail or picking up the phone, is you have this little piece of handwriting from them, and that really evokes a lot," said Wigand.

Hallmark, based in Kansas City, Mo., has 50 writers on its staff. Some have specialties. Gray, for example, writes only funny stuff -- mostly for the company's Shoebox line.

He arrives at work each morning and receives a list of categories for which he is supposed to write jokes. Out of the 25 to 30 jokes Gray writes each day, maybe two or three from the entire week will find their way onto cards. He figures he has written about 85,000 jokes over his 18-year career.

Some of them are really funny, but have a better chance of being scrawled on the wall of a Hallmark storeroom than inside a card.

" 'Our love is like thunder -- rolling, noisy and unwelcome at outdoor sporting events,' " Gray read from a small notebook, eliciting giggles from Wednesday morning's crowd.

Wigand's group of co-workers write a little bit of everything -- quips for greeting cards, slogans for wall-hangings and other items, even jokes for in-house speeches. They also name the company's dolls and stuffed animals.

During afternoon brainstorm sessions, Wigand's group writes ideas on index cards and tosses them into a red plastic fish (because they are"fishing for ideas").

"But what happens in the brainstorm room, stays in the brainstorm room," Wigand said, borrowing a slogan some of us would gladly let her take from here and never bring back.

"Some of the ideas are, um, inappropriate by Hallmark standards," she said.

And if it seems that many greeting cards are written solely for you and your particular situation, it's because they are.

"We call it 'universal specific,' " Gray said. "The idea is when you receive it, it will sound exactly like it was just for you -- 10,000 times."

Rise Strobehn, who attended Thursday's session, said one particular anniversary card was so perfect, her husband bought it for her a year after she'd already given it to him. And two years later, he bought it for her again.

"I finally laid all three of them out for him," she said.

Strobehn was among those who attended the writers' talks in hopes of getting a foot into Hallmark's door.

No, they don't accept freelance one-timers. Yes, you have to move to Kansas City.

"So I guess I'm stuck," Strobehn said after Wednesday's session. "Because I don't think I could get my husband to move to Kansas City."