The GM is not a psychic, they can't read your mind to know exactly what you want out of the game. Better yet, give them wholesale ideas they could use. Telling your GM "hey, I want to get rich" is nice to communicate your character's desires, but giving that GM a plan to heist a bank, complete with some NPC ideas, what security they might have and other plot hooks takes a load off their shoulders. Mind you, you should keep things concise at least in the pitch stage, since few people have the patience to read multiple pages of stuff, but a brief summary to get the ideas across might just do the trick.
Even if you don't give the GM the complete adventure you want to have, sometimes discussing how the session goes might still be helpful. Sure, sometimes you want to be in the dark about some things, and that's a good rule to keep in mind if that's what you're going for, but sometimes knowing a bit of what's coming up can help you strategise and get over bumpy parts of the adventure.
(I know it's not for everyone, but sometimes even if you know what the adventure will be, it can still be fun to play through. Heck, once we ran Storms of Yizhao, didn't like how it turned out, workedhopped a fix for the adventure, and then ran it one more time knowing the ins and out of the module while still having fun)
This can go both ways too - perhaps the GM has prepared an adventure for the players that requires a bit of buy-in ("Hey, I have 'Fane of the Night Serpent' adventure module. Heads up - this module expects you to sell yourself into slavery as the main way of getting in. Everyone cool with that?"). Communicating that clearly up-front can save some cat herding during the actual game itself. And hey, if players have some issues with the premise of the game, you can discuss it ahead of time and think of a solution before investing half a session getting to a point of contention and dropping the adventure altogether due to some disagreements.
Communicating outside of the game can also help you facilitate the Watsonian vs. Doylist decisions. Me as my character might not want to get beaten up and put into jail, but me as the player might be totally on board with that situation because it sounds fun to roleplay.
In general, talking about what you as the player or the GM want out of the game in general and any particular session in particular and agreeing on what's the best plan is can ensure people get the most fun out of the game.
It's good to let people know what you'd like to see happen, and also raise any concerns about some problems you might be seeing. It's good to address those early on before they snowball into something more toxic if left unaddressed. Maybe the party is turning into murderhobos and you don't want to have another one of those games, or maybe they aren't murderhobo enough and you're not having fun with your chaotic evil death knight. Communicate about those issues when they come up, otherwise you might be left stewing for awhile while nothing gets fixed. GMs and players aren't psychic, talk with them.
Similarly, make sure to clear some major twists, reveals and wacky ideas you have with your GM ahead of time if you have any doubts they might work. One fun story about that in our game is when we played AMP Year One. One of the characters was a super strong soccer mom that lost custody of her kid after getting into an accident. Since the PCs started working with a criminal organisation, they decided to pull some strings and surprise the PC with getting her full custody of her child. Spoiler alert, the PC surprised the entire group, GM included, by revealing her character was repressing that her kid died in that accident, so whoever the poor kid was that the NPCs have brought in wasn't her child. It was a fun moment and a fun twist, but yeah, clear such things with the GM ahead of time ;) . Other things that need to be communicated - clearing up any wacky rules / power combos you want to use to some great effect that aren't obvious, or could be interpreted in different ways. You don't want to spend a whole session or two building up to a crescendo that fizzles out because the GM interpreted a rule differently than you.
The same communication advice can be applied in the other direction as well - if a GM has an idea for something interesting to do with a character that might be risque or imposing something about their past or present situation, it might be worthwhile to check with the player ahead of time. Introducing a new relative, some friend, a new detail about their past, putting them in danger seemingly out of the blue etc. would fall into this category. Of course, you don't have to reveal every upcoming twist (one of our favourite examples of a cool twist the player did not see coming was Boundless Jurisdiction checking up on his husband in Gangs of New Gloam, not realising how he has moved on...). How often you check in will depend on your mutual trust and preference in the end, understandably.
So yeah, all in all:
- Nobody is psychic, don't expect people to know something you don't communicate clearly
- Talk about expectations, hangups, problems, etc.
- If buy-ins for adventures or some obtuse adventure moon logic might be an issue, best communicate them ahead of time
- If you have some cool ideas of what could or you'd like to happen, let them be known
- Clear important things with your GM about your character's backstory, important twists, and any weird things you are basing your plans on
- Clear things with your players about new things you want to introduce to their backstory
- In general, communicate with each other!
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