... it doesn't?

Not that that should surprise her; Emily is well aware that she's unusual. With the arrival of the notebook, she had started to think that perhaps she was only unusual in the way that many protagonists are unusual, but maybe she's still weird even among people to whom the Spirit sends a notebook.

A lot of people don't think in terms of stories to quite that extent, or in quite that way, even people who like the kinds of stories they can bring to their life with the Spirit's power.

Ah.

Anyway, that probably means that she should take Selective Memory and The Veil. She puts a checkbox next to each, and writes a reminder to write herself a letter. Painted Veil seems excessive, so she skips that one. Secret Identity seems ...

Well, it seems like something that she could be okay with, but it doesn't particularly appeal to her the way Selective Memory or Helpline do, and she can already see the notebook advising her not to take drawbacks she doesn't want, which is fair.

Grimm's Fairy Tales sends her flipping back through the notebook looking for the entry for Cotton Candy. Which, itself, is somewhat thought provoking.

On the one hand, giving people happy endings is probably a good thing. On the other hand, having them just happen seems ...

Is this one ...

Does this stop some stories from happening, or is it more like nudging the odds?

It's more like nudging the odds, if I understand what you mean. The way I'd put it might be that... sometimes people get hurt in ways that don't serve any story particularly, just because they're people living imperfect lives, and Cotton Candy pushes things closer to a world where people only get hurt when there's a story they want to be part of that needs them to. But it only makes things more like that from where they started; it doesn't make things completely like that.