The author needs to put some meat on the bones of the story to make it more engaging.
The characters in the movie were one-dimensional, so the director had to give some depth to the bones.
The proposal was good, but it needs some flesh on the bones to be fully developed.
The project proposal was weak, so the team leader decided to put some muscle on the bones by adding more resources.
The presentation was lacking, so the speaker decided to add some substance to the bones with more data.