The bark peeling off the broken branches was all strategically made into melodic lines to avoid having the tree trunk show straight lines, as seen in the reference photo above.
Where the river meets the land, we see a straight line. The visual movement is too fast. This also results in the river having a rectangle shape, which is not an abstract shape.
By adding a fallen tree trunk, some rocks and small coves, I was able to offset the straight line and slow down the visual thrust converting it to a melodic line. The tree in the foreground helped offset the rectangular shape of the water. On a side note, the mountain peak in the painting is now less triangular than in the reference photo. It is now an abstract shape.