"Choppy." Does this mean the sentences are too short?
"I didn't like the flow." ?
(And, any of your own ?'s, of course.)
Both questions can be addressed by an understanding of metric prose--writing with a destinct beat. You can knock your reader out of the story by suddenly shifting rhythm. That forces the writer to reword in order to keep the desired rhythm. some people do it naturally when they write (it doesn't sound right, otherwise) and some have to work hard at it. And some don't care.
[This message has been edited by rickfisher (edited June 27, 2005).]
But that's all right, though -- because if there's anything about a critique an author doesn't understand, then the author can and should contact the critiquer for clarification. Don't skip over it or ignore it if you don't get it. Ask the critiquer to expand on it. Break their fingers if you have to. Why? Because, while you are writing something new, this might niggle away in the back of your mind for weeks or months, and you'll wonder if everything you're writing is choppy. So, don't be a statistic. Take charge! Bash skulls! Politely, of course.
Definitely writers should ask for carification on anything they don't understand.
Choppy can also relate to story progression, from paragraph to paragraph or scene to scene, like you took a pair of scissors to a well-told story and chopped it up, then reassembled at random.
Flow is pretty much the same thing. If it's choppy it doesn't flow. It's like riding a bike on a bumpy mountain trail. It's as hard on the body as choppy writing is on the mind.
There is a wonderful list of things to avoid in writing that has been compiled by a group of SF/F writers who encourage writers to not only read it but to pass it on.
It's called the Turkey City Lexicon and you can find it several places, but the first one that came up on Google was this:
http://www.sfwa.org/writing/turkeycity.html
I think I'll go post this link in the Ways to Critique area, too.