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What things should I look out for to make sure my book doesn't end up being banned

I've read a lot of ban books, Slaughterhouse Five, Memoirs of a Geisha, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, The Color Purple . . . And I understand that a lot of those books i've read there are constant swears, and really descriptive sexual scenes. But then there are books such as Monster, and The Secret Life of Bees that I've read that I think have almost the same things, but aren't banned (at least I don't think so). Monster has a ton of fowl language, and The Secret Life of Bees has a swear here and there and some reletive sexual content. And a books that I just don't understand why they are banned like Memoirs of a Geisha, Kujo, and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. But surely, I wouldn't want my book to be on this list, so what can I watch out for? My book is an adventure/action/fantasy type of novel, so there's going to be some blood written description during certain scenes (battle scenes), and since my characters are teens, I guess I'll be wanting to, not necessarily having to, but wanting to add a couple slurs here and there in order to fit the "now-a-days teens" things . . . I mean, I'm 16 taking quarter college classes at Century so I'm a teen myself. I curse here and there. So . . . any advise? What's too much, what's okay??

Public Comments

1. Your book won't be "banned." Those lists are just collections of books that some school libraries and public libraries have decided not to carry, usually under the pressure of local religious or political organizations. Don't worry about banning. The court decision in regards to Joyce's Ulysses more or less permantly stopped all forms of national censorship that can be done by the government. The "ban" that the books on those lists have is determined by small cultural and market forces, but as you've seen have not had any ill effect on the books themselves. Just the idiots who don't realize that there is no way to accidently read a book. Here's a link to the Wiki article about the aforementioned court case. It's pretty important for writers to know about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._One_Book_Called_Ulysses
2. Once you start writing to please others or to sell a book, You are defeating the purpose of writing you'll make more money doing something else.
3. Write what you want, not what you think others will want. If you only write what you think will fall into others' guidelines, then your book will be no good.