Is it possible to make a short story into parts? I was thinking of doing that because I wanted to end my story on a cliffhanger. Would magazines buy them? Will a reader read that? Or would I have to make them into one short story? Thanks for your help.
You mean serializing a story? Like publishing installments over several issues? I don't think that's as popular as it once was, but @deadrats would know more than I.
That's not something I usually see (or ever) in the literary journals and magazines which are the places buying short stories. Short stories are sort of designed to read in one sitting, and even long short stories are still a little too short to really pull off this format. I have seen short stories divided into mini chapters. There was one called The Believer or The Believers that ran in The Sun Magazine a few years ago that was really good. And McSweeney's Quarterly has run this style with longer works, almost novella length, but the whole story was always there. No one is waiting on the next issue. And I'm not sure why you would want them to. This is something that used to be done with novels in newspapers, but it's not the 1800s anymore. If you are going to try and sell short fiction, you should send the whole story, and expect, if they buy it, they will run the story in one go.
