The story of real paper happened in what is now the People's Republic of China. Similar to the indigenous people of Egypt, the Chinese had, virtually 50 centuries ago, developed a type of writing that used images. They also had been making use of various objects to scribe upon, most usually lengths of bamboo and silk woven into a fine fabric and possibly the barkcloth they used for other unconnected purposes from the Paper. Mulberry was used also.
Legend points to the fact that in 105AD an official by the name of Tsai Lung, brought out paper, though it is clear from archaeological discoveries that actually it was being used in South East Asia for more than likely two centuries prior to Tsai Lung.
Back in ancient times setting down words was generally on bamboo or occasionally on strips of silk, which were then called ji. Nonetheless silk being expensive and bamboo being very heavy, these two materials were not of great use. Due to this Tsai Lun came up with the idea of using tree bark, hemp, rags, and fish nets. In 105 years after the birth of Christ he put an idea to the emperor about the production of paper and got many accolades for his creativity. Since those distant days paper has been utilized in almost every place on earth and is called the "paper of Marquis Tsai".
If indeed the above historical tag is accurate, will very likely not ever be known! However, the most important consideration must be that the discovery was made that if they ground particular compounds derived from plant matter in to a mush, throw out impurities, put the mush in liquid, sieve it out onto cloth sheets giving it enough time to dry out. After the drying process was complete, it conglomerated into a firm, resilient sheet that was extremely light, and providing it was not allowed to come into contact with water, proved surprisingly dense.
It's a fact that this extremely simple of paper making technologies is still being used in precisely the same way in and around Tibet and Nepal, the very first regions to pick up the craft from China. A basic frame makes use of a cloth made from cotton stretched over a single side, watery paste is poured into the far end and moved around until it has reached a level. After which it is left hanging somewhere to let the water to drain out of it and the mache to dry into a parchment sheet which will be able to be removed by stripping off.
At some point in time a clever developer realized that making a frame with ribbing and putting in place a delicate replaceable bamboo mat across it, would enable the process to be quickened fantastically. Rather than tying up a single mould for every sheet of parchment, consequently severely restricting the amount of sheets that are able to be produced at one time, a stack of sieved pulp was able to be built up a layer at a time, with only a length of cotton thread between them in order to facilitate later separation. The stack would then be squeezed lightly, and each sheet of grume moved to a board to dry.