Little Coincidences - writing

I am working on draft 1 of a YA novel right now, and one of the nice things I've discovered in working on such a lengthy project is the allowance for connecting threads within the narrative to form through, as the title of this post suggests, little coincidences.  Let me try to explain (as much to get things straight in my head as to have something posted here for the month of February)  

point 1:

The impetus for much of what is occurring in the main setting of the novel is formed by an accepted reality - that the world on which these disparate characters live is heading quickly toward its imminent demise and they must find a portal to an equally hospitable dimension or perish (just noticed the Superman connection here).  This has been put forth by the queen of the realm as indisputable fact, backed up by her science minister's findings ... a science minister who has been noticeably absent throughout the first 60,000 words of my manuscript.

point 2:

A few chapters back I chose to introduce a new character - an oracle of sorts - mainly because I wanted to have someone who could foreshadow a bit of what is to come, but I also wanted to write a crazed character in the style of the "mad scientist" or "nutty professor."  And, despite this character's penchant for unintelligible gibberish and the crazed look in his eyes, he is the queen's most trusted adviser, the only one who has a room within the castle proper.  As such, he is also the one who has not had much, if any, interaction with anyone outside of the queen herself.  <-- i="">And this was basically all I had for the character when he came on stage.

point 3:

I decided rather soon into the manuscript that the scientific pronouncement of impending doom for this alternate dimension was actually a ruse put forth by the queen, for reasons of her own.  Initially, I concluded that the science minister would be in on the sham.  But with the most recent chapter written - a council meeting where the science minister is, once again, absent - I thought it might be more interesting if his absenteeism were due to the fact that the queen secretly had him killed.  Ah, more intrigue.  [emoticon here]

point 4:  

And so, as I was walking back across campus this morning, at the day job, it came to me that the reason for the oracle's favored status might be because he stumbled upon the killing of the science minister and has been shut away to keep this from getting out.  This would also explain his rantings of despair and death with regard to the queen's imminent future (rather than the belief of the world's looming demise).  It would ground his oracular powers a bit, and it would make for a very interesting turn of events if ...

point 5:

... the queen's main rival discovered this through an interrogation of the oracle.  

an aside:  I've been discovering more of these coincidences that can be tethered to one another within my writing over the past year or so, which has been one of the things that keeps me going.  It feels like another step forward, as if I might be learning how to do this writing thing right. [insert new emoticon here]

chris