Flame, metal, and a small pellet of solder can be intimidating, especially in the early stages of learning jewelry making. Students usually expect the solder to adhere the pieces together as soon as the solder touches the flame. In truth, the solder will not flow until the entire piece of metal reaches a certain temperature, at which point the solder will flow nicely into the seam. Until then, nothing will happen. It takes patience and practice to learn this, not to mention making a few pieces of jewelry.
Here is one practice exercise you can do. Place two small pieces of copper side by side. Sand both pieces to get the oxides off and place them on the fireproof surface. Add a little flux and a small pellet of solder on the seam. Instead of using the torch to heat the solder, try to heat the surrounding metal to see how it spreads. After several attempts, it will become easier to observe when the solder will flow in the seam. This is also an exercise in learning to control the torch.
Another frequent error is heating the solder with too small a flame. Instead of heating the surrounding metal, the student will try to heat the solder directly to get it to melt. This often causes the solder to bead up instead of flowing into the seam. The fix is quite simple; using a larger flame, heat in a circular motion around the seam, rather than focusing on the solder itself. If the metal is heated enough, the solder will flow into the seam, rather than beading up. Again, practice makes perfect.
Do a little practice each day rather than trying to do too much at once. Take about 15 minutes a day preparing small joints and trying to solder them together. After each attempt, examine the join. If the join looks dull and/or incomplete, take the pieces apart and try again, sanding the pieces clean first. Again, the more you practice, the easier it will be to observe the flow of the solder.
After a while, the torch will not seem so daunting and you will begin to see improvements, for example, in the clarity of your joints or how smoothly the solder is flowing between two pieces of metal. These improvements will not come from reading a book; it will come from practicing with the torch, learning how to prepare the metal, and from repetition.