The story of real paper started in China. Like the Egyptians, the Chinese had, virtually five thousand years ago, developed a type of writing that used pictures. The Egyptians too had been using various kinds of things to scribe upon, most notably lengths of bamboo and silk woven into a fine fabric and it is possible that the barkcloth they made for other purposes derived from the Paper. Mulberry was made use of too.
Historical documentation leads us to believe that in 105 years after the birth of Christ a member of the government going by the name of Tsai Lung, created usable paper, though it seems from archaeological digs that in fact it was being used in what is now the People's Republic of China for probably two centuries before Tsai Lung.
Way back during ancient times setting down words or pictograms was mainly on some form of bamboo or on pieces of silk, which were called Ji in those days. But silk being expensive and bamboo being very weighty, these materials were not convenient. About this time Tsai Lun came up with the idea of making use of tree bark, rags, fish nets, and hemp. In 105AD he submitted a report to the emperor on the process of paper making and received high accolade for his thoughts. Consequently, from those days paper has been availed of everywhere and is known as the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
Whether this historical reference is deserved, will likely never be uncovered! Nevertheless the major factor must be that they found that they could pound some plant derived substances in to a mash, oust unwanted substances, place the mash in liquid, filter it out onto textile sheets allowing it to dry. When it dried, it conglomerated into a firm, dense sheet that was decidedly light, and as long as it was not allowed to get damp, turned out to be exceedingly resilient.
It's a fact that this very straightforward of papermaking technologies is still practised in exactly the same way within Tibet and Nepal, the first regions to learn the technolgies from South East Asia. A basic frame utilizes a cotton cloth pulled and held over a single side, watery pulp is put into the opposite end and moved around until it is smooth. It is then left suspended that will let the water to drain out of it and the mush to dry into a parchment sheet which may be taken off.
At some point in time an extremely clever individual figured that building a frame with ribs and putting a fine bamboo mat that is replaceable across this, would allow the process to be accelerated fantastically. Rather than utilizing a single mould for each paper sheet, consequently severely limiting the amount of sheets that can be made at one time, a stack of sieved grume could be built up a layer at a time, with only a length of cotton thread between them to facilitate separation at a later time. The stack would then be squeezed gently, and every sheet of paste transferred to a dry board.